


Don't You Worry Child (Heaven Has A Plan For You)

by aleanbean



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Feral!Eren, Gen, Homeless Eren Yeager, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, My First Fanfic, Spoilers, The 104th Squad, Underage Drinking, Up to Chapter 93 at least because thats how far I've read, Will update tags as story progresses, again kind of a given, i love that that came up immediately, kind of a given there. this is a story about man-eating monsters, sort of fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 10:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15772236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleanbean/pseuds/aleanbean
Summary: Hannes grabbed Mikasa, thinking Eren would follow. Only he didn’t. He was standing at the titan’s feet when it grabbed his mother and ate her. That was the last anyone saw of him. Cut to 5 years later, when the colossal titan appears again at Trost, and and everyone is freaking out. Suddenly, this titan appears and starts killing the others. Turns out to be Eren, who has been living for 5 years alone in titan territory.





	1. Prologue: Fall of Shiganshina

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so this is my first ever fanfic, pls be gentle :P   
> Basically, this is a what if for if Eren never escaped Shiganshina with Mikasa, lived in titan territory for 5 years, then shows up in the battle for Trost. Will still follow main canon events (will be a mix of manga and anime, but I do have a personal preference for the manga), but will obviously have to differ somewhat due to this altered backstory. (For example, since I still want our 104th squad to be in the Survey Corps, they will need a reason other than Eren's pep talk to do it, since he won't have trained with them.)  
> Not beta'd, as that would require having someone to do that, which I do not.  
> Title from the song of the same name by Swedish House Mafia, but may change since I am kind of on the spot here for a name so I can publish it.

Everyone in the street could only stop and stare at the titan peeking over the wall at them. The few marginally less paralysed were voicing what everyone seemed to be thinking. Cries of “Impossible!” and “What _is_ that?!” echoed in the silence as it seemed Shiganshina itself held its breath, waiting to see what would happen.

The bang of the wall breaking was the single loudest thing Eren, Mikasa, and Armin had ever heard in their short lives.

The silence that followed was the second.

Everyone was frozen. No one said a word. It seemed as if time itself had stopped for a moment in incredulity. The wall breaking was unheard of. Countless titans had beaten their fists against it and it hadn’t so much as chipped. And yet here was a titan of unprecedented size, able to just kick it in in one try.

The debris fell, and it was like the signal for life to continue went off.

Everyone was screaming, running in all directions, unsure of where to go in their panic. Some didn’t even have the chance to, killed by giant pieces of the wall that once protected them before they could react.

Armin was frozen in his fear. He was bright lad, as his parents and people around town used to say; he could easily accept that what he saw was indeed happening, and it was no leap to guess what was in store for them. But while his young mind could logically piece together that he and everyone he knew or had ever known were about to die horribly gruesome and painful deaths, he couldn’t bring himself to move.

More stone falling to his right snapped him out of his thoughts. He had to at least _try_ and survive. That basic instinct doesn’t just vanish because your world falls apart. He turned to run, to save himself, but quickly realised something was wrong with his friends. He was always the hesitant one, often being roused by one or both of them shaking his shoulder and some comment about ‘coming out of that big brain of his’ or something like that.

Where were they?!

He spotted Mikasa first, as she was closest to him. He grabbed her hand, started pulling her away.

“Mikasa! We have to go! There are... there… _they’re_ coming!” he shouted, his tongue still proving stubborn to the concept of titans within the walls. She resisted and looked back towards the wall.

No, not towards the wall, Armin realised. Towards Eren.

Eren, who was taking slow steps forward when everyone else was running back. Who hadn’t taken his eyes off the enormous hulking creatures bent on consuming the entire human race.

Who was walking towards death.

Armin couldn’t understand what was going on. “EREN!” He shrieked, panic beginning to take hold of him as his hands began to shake uncontrollably. Somehow, over all the chaos around them, he managed to hear the muttered answer to his unspoken question.

“Mum’s at home. She’s all by herself. I-I have to go to her!”

He was shouting by the end of it, and broke into a run towards his house. Armin was more surprised at his distinct lack of surprise when Mikasa tore her hand from his and ran after him.

Armin watched them until he couldn’t anymore, when they rounded the corner. It was then he realised he wasn’t, in fact, following them like he had assumed he was. He was still standing there, in the middle of the street. He grabbed one shaking hand in the other to try and calm himself. He knew he couldn’t match their pace, couldn’t help them if they encountered a titan on their way home.

But he knew someone who could.

Armin Arlert took off running with the crowd, intent on getting out of there with his small circle of friends and family intact.

~ ~ ~

Mikasa knew, when she saw the titan’s foot go through the wall, that she recognised this feeling all too well; she was going to lose her family again. She was stuck with that single thought echoing in her head as pieces of the gate fell on the people it was meant to protect, as so many screams all mixed together into the combined fear of the citizens around her, as the sworn enemy of the entire human race started to come through the hole in Wall Maria.

It wasn’t until she couldn’t see the wall or the titans (or the bodies or bloody smears) anymore that her brain seemed to restart itself and she became aware of the world again. Of what was now in front of her, since she had apparently been turned around.

Of Armin yelling at her to go.

She started to follow him, but barely made it a few steps before realising her family wasn’t there.

_Eren. Where is Eren?_

She found him slowly moving forward. She could see his face, how it reflected what she had been thinking earlier, because he clearly hadn’t snapped out of it like she had thanks to Armin. He was scared for his family. More specifically, his mother, since his father had left earlier that morning, ~~and she was right there next to him~~.

She could understand that fear, having lost her parents already. And she would be damned if she let him go on his own.

She would never let him be alone.

So Mikasa tore after him down streets and back alleys towards the place that for roughly a year had become her home too.

In the space of the run there she had almost convinced herself that her fear for Eren was for nothing, that he wouldn’t have to go through what she did. That everything would be fine. Almost.

Still, seeing the rubble where their house once stood still made her skid to a stop, her breath catch in her throat, her eyes widen in fear. She barely heard him yell, shrill with fear, for his mother who was surely dead under all that broken stone and wood.

She saw him run to the house, barely even winded from his mad sprint there, and bend down to see something. He started clearing away some of the stone and wood, as if it would help, as if it would make her any less dead. Then she saw dark eyes looking at her, a hand that’d touched her face a thousand times reaching out to her. Arms that had made her feel simultaneously loved and heartbroken trying to lift the rest of the woman who had taken her in as her daughter. Then her name was yelled again, this time more determined than panicked.

“Mikasa! Help me with this! We need to get her _out_!”

Mikasa ran to help him as Eren tried to lift a massive wooden beam off his mother’s back. She could only see half of Carla Jeager, but that half was still breathing, and that was enough for Mikasa to help Eren try to save the woman that had become another mother to her ~~because no one could replace the one she lost~~.

“Eren, Mikasa, _please!_ You have to run, now!” she shouted desperately, looking wildly from one of her children to the other.

“Mum, I want to, I really do, but I can’t until you’re _free_ , dammit!” Eren shouted back, equally desperate, as his hand began to bleed from the rough edges of the beam. He looked to Mikasa and yelled.

“Lift harder, Mikasa! We have to get this off of her!”

“I’m trying!” she yelled back, hysteria creeping in to her voice as she lifted with everything she had, ignoring the bite of splintered wood into her soft palms and the strain on her small back and arms.

Carla’s head may as well have been on a swivel for how it moved between the two children and the beam holding her to the ground. They didn’t understand, they were children, they shouldn’t even have to, but it was her job as their mother to make them.

So they could live, and see the sunrise tomorrow, and the next, and hopefully as many as their earthly bodies could take before they grew too old and died peaceful deaths.

Nothing like the one she was about to, if the rhythmic tremors of giant footstepts she could feel and hear getting louder were anything to go by. She steeled herself. She knew in order to make them listen, she would have to be harsh. There simply wasn’t enough time for everything she wanted to say to them, everything she needed them to know, to apologise for putting them in this position in the first place by living in a border district of all places.

Instead, she said what she hoped would keep them alive.

“Eren, just _listen_ to me, for once in your life!”

She had his attention then, and she maintained eye contact with those beautiful green eyes she had raised from birth.

“My legs are crushed. I can’t run, even if you do manage to get me out of here. Do you know what this means?!”

Mikasa hesitated at that, and slowly took her arms off the beam. Carla smiled inwardly. She was a smart girl, had seen too much for her age. But she had the power to save her son right now. So she focused on her, instead of Eren’s childish insistence that he could carry her, that they’d all survive this.

“You have to leave me here, and save yourselves.”

Mikasa’s eyes widened at she stepped back slightly, as if her words were a physical blow. But Carla saw the determination in her eyes, and couldn’t hold back her small, relieved smile that at least one of them, the stronger one, understood.

Mikasa opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by a shadow suddenly falling over them.

Sillhouetted in the setting sun, was a titan at the end of the street. It looked their way, seemed to _smile_ , and started heading towards the little family.

Mikasa’s blood ran cold. She looked at the titan, at her surrogate mother, who seemed to have accepted her fate with tears flowing down her face. She looked at Eren, who was still heaving at the beam, skin tearing from his hands and tears streaming down his own face contorted with the effort of moving the immovable.

She was distantly aware of someone coming up behind her, of a conversation with Carla and that guard Eren knew, Hannes. She grabbed Eren’s shoulder but was violently shrugged off as he kept trying to move the beam. She had the hysterical thought that his arms would pop off if he kept it up much longer, before an arm snaked its way around her waist and she was lifted off the ground.

“Eren! I have Mikasa, let’s _go!”_

It was Hannes, shouting at Eren as he eyed the titan coming closer and closer. He turned and started running, assuming that Eren was trying to show strength in front of her or something equally childish, and that now that he didn’t have to pretend he would follow them away to safety. The cobblestones bounced in Mikasa’s vision from her position in Hannes’ arms, and she realised she could only hear one set of footsteps pounding on the pavement. She turned to see Eren and she felt her heart stop.

He wasn’t behind them like Hannes thought. He was still at the house, looking up at the titan as it stopped and stared back, the beam forgotten as his blood dripped from his hands down to the front steps to his house.

“EREN! NO!”

Mikasa screamed, unaware she was imitating Carla, who was also screaming for Eren to run, to go with Mikasa and Hannes and survive to see another day.

Lucky (or unlucky) for him, he was ignored in favour of digging through the remains of the house for larger prey. He leapt at its feet, kicking and punching and screaming for it to stop as the titan lifted his mother like she weighed little more than one of his old toys.

Hannes skidded to a stop at Mikasa’s screams, and turned to see what was happening behind him. Mikasa, on the other hand, turned away. She didn’t need to see another parent die.

The harsh snap of a jaw closing, the sickening squelch of something soft and wet being torn, and the sharp intake of breath beside her would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Hannes had to make an(other) impossible choice then. Save the one life in his arms and his own, or risk both to save another. He screwed his eyes tightly closed at the terror in the young face that had turned to see them.

He made his choice.

The last Mikasa saw of Eren was terrified bottle green eyes before Hannes rounded the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yeeah this was meant to be short, but I got a bit carried away, and now we have this 2000+ word prologue instead. In saying that, I couldn't bare to cut it short, I had a lot of fun writing it (in a not sociopathic way, considering how feelsy it is). I'm hoping that uploading this will force me to write the next chapter and get it up quickly so as not leave people hanging like I have been many many times by other fics in my life.   
>  Hope you like it :)


	2. The 104th Training Corps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the main cast of the 104th Training Corps!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit of a filler, since I didn't want to just traumatise these kids left, right, and centre all the time.  
> They deserve some happy times, don't they? They get to have a party in this one, so that's a plus. 
> 
> Again, all mistakes are my own, of which there are probably plenty. Sorry for leaving you all hanging for this chapter btw, my step-sister got married! Hopefully I'll be able to post more often (though life does enjoy getting in the way sometimes).
> 
> Also, can I just say: WOW. The response to this has absolutely blown me away! I never dreamed it would be this popular!  
> I promise to do my best to make it worthy of your combined praise :)

Mikasa’s eyes snapped open and she rolled out of bed in one fluid motion. She hadn’t thought of that day in a while, much to her chagrin. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was forget. Forget her family. Forget Eren.

She immediately hit the floor and started her morning workout routine; fifty sit-ups, fifty push-ups, fifty crunches. It was nothing, really, simply a way to stay fit and work out the tension in her muscles from her dreams. It was what they had to do for punishments whenever they messed up in training, but she didn’t want to fall behind the others in physical fitness just because she never messed up.

A tired grunt made her pause in her sit-ups, looking for the culprit. She found Sasha, blearily rubbing her eyes and sitting up in her cot, the blankets pooling around her waist.

“Mikasa? What’re you doin?” she mumbled, barely coherent through a yawn. Mikasa held her gaze for a second more, before turning back to her exercises. She knew Sasha looked up to her; hell, most of the cadets held her in high esteem, due to her incredible skill (She didn’t like it when they said talent; it implied no work was involved, that she could simply do it. While that was true initially, she worked damn hard to keep getting better and better).

She had to be the best if she wanted to accomplish her goal.

Sasha watched her tiredly as she finished her sit-ups and silently flipped over onto her stomach to begin her push-ups. It made her body hurt just looking at Mikasa right now. She decided instead to peek out the window to check the time. She managed to supress the urge to roll her eyes, but not to groan in frustration at seeing how light the sky was; dawn was not far off. There wasn’t enough time for a decent amount of sleep before they had to be up. Barely a half an hour by her estimate, and that was assuming she could even fall back asleep.

So instead, she decided to get up early for a change. This turned out to be more boring than watching paint dry (something she tried as a kid one time) and seeing as getting changed could only be dragged out so long, she went to sit with Mikasa to wait for the dawn together. Mikasa gave the other girl a quick glance to check what she was doing, before she returned all her focus to her movements.

Sasha had to admire her; she was strong, quick, the best by far out of all of them. She had this natural grace with the 3D manoeuvre gear that made it look effortless, as if there were no wires or belts at all. Every move was precise, thought out. Mikasa never fucked up like she did. The other cadets had started joking that it wasn’t a matter of achieving a place in the top ten, but rather the top nine, since Mikasa was a guarantee for number one, so it didn’t count. However, she was distant with everyone, more focused on her training than on making friends. Sasha figured that, while that would be a large contributor to her being the best, it would also have to be quite lonely. In saying that, she couldn’t forget the one person Mikasa deemed worthy of her attention: Armin Arlert. She figured it had to do with their past, since Armin had told her they grew up together. Maybe it had to do with her nightmares, too.

Watching Mikasa work out while she did nothing was not helping her self-esteem. Since today was hand to hand training anyway, and they all knew that was a bludge if ever there was one in the training corps, Sasha decided to join her for the final part of her morning routine.

When dawn finally came and the other cadets were roused by the yelling of one of the drill sergeants, Sasha was panting on the floor and Mikasa was sitting on her cot, looking for all the world like she had just woken up ready to go.

~ ~ ~

Breakfast was always a much quieter affair than any other meal. A lot of the cadets were still waking up, moving on automatic. Unless something interesting happened in the night, there was nothing new to talk about. Mikasa sat with Armin, like always. He greeted her with a small smile, his bowl of porridge no longer steaming like hers.

“Hey Mikasa. Sleep well?” he asked cheerily.

She unconsciously scowled, before she schooled her face back into its usual impassive expression. Not before Armin noticed, however, and quickly averted his gaze to his porridge to give her some semblance of privacy. He knew how hard it was for her to show emotion, how she felt she had to be strong for the both of them. He didn’t think he’d seen her cry after their trip on the boat with the other refugees behind Wall Rose after Wall Maria fell.

He couldn’t fathom it. Armin cried all the time, for various reasons.

“…Did you dream of him again?” he asked quietly. He didn’t want anyone to overhear them on such a sensitive topic.

Mikasa debated keeping silent, but ultimately decided to talk to Armin. He was all she had left, and if anyone would understand, it would be him.

“…Yeah,” she replied, just as softly.

“Was it the same as what happened? Or…” Armin trailed off uncertainly. He didn’t want to give her anymore nightmare ammunition than she already had by describing some of his. His dreams involved the one time she told him what she saw, and the more he learned about titans the more horribly they ended. Just the other night he saw his old friend get eaten alive, swallowed whole, screaming for help from inside the titan’s stomach.  

He shuddered at the memory and refocused on Mikasa. This was about her, not him.

“The same. Still sucks, though,” she replied.

“What still sucks?”

They were interrupted by Reiner and Bertholt, who were practically inseparable, coming to sit across from them.

Mikasa fumbled for an appropriate answer that didn’t involve her deepest fears. She was thankfully saved by Armin’s quick thinking, something that was happening more often the more his self-confidence grew, with some excuse about the menu.

“Tell me about it! You’d think after nearly 3 years they’d have been able to get some variety for us. But here we are, with the same food every day,” Bertholt agreed, perhaps a little too loudly to be considered polite.

“Come on guys, I’m sure they do their best,” said Reiner, ever the voice of reason. He was seen as like everyone’s older brother, always ready with some advice, trying to keep people out of trouble and striving to do their best. Mikasa would have found it almost heart-warming, if she wasn’t too old for such things.

The conversation died quickly after that, with everyone rushing to finish their food and give it some time to digest before the day’s work. Armin shot Mikasa a look over his nearly empty bowl (he was always the last to finish), checking if she was ok. She gave him a small nod and a slight twitch of her lips to show her thanks.

It was the closest she got to smiling now, at least in public anyway. 

Everyone rushed through the day’s training, some barely focusing enough to even put in effort (but not Mikasa, never Mikasa; she always gave her all. How else would she improve?). They were all eager for the day to end so they could find out their results. Today was their last day as cadets, and most of them intended to go out with a bang, drinking stolen liquor and smuggled food (courtesy of Sasha, most likely) to either celebrate success or drown their failures.

Tomorrow would be a graduation ceremony, then they would get to choose which branch of the military they would join. But that was tomorrow, and it was a time-honoured tradition to be extremely hungover for it. Most of them intended to keep that tradition alive.

Mikasa resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her opponent, a tall, freckled girl name Ymir. She was slacking off, like everyone else, just because they were doing hand to hand combat. It wasn’t graded, so most people didn’t put much effort into it. Sometimes even Mikasa found herself wondering as to the point of learning self-defence when it would be useless against a titan. However, Mikasa was not most people, and allowed herself some satisfaction when she knocked Ymir on her arse yet again.

“Ow! Come on Mikasa, why do you have to take everything so seriously?” she complained, rubbing her lower back as she got up. Mikasa stared her down, choosing to let her read whatever she wanted from her silence.

“Not much of a ‘people person’, huh,” she muttered to herself, as she reluctantly got into position to repeat the exercise, trying to attack Mikasa with a wooden training knife. Mikasa smirked at that, causing Ymir to raise an eyebrow. At least she was paying attention now; it was more fun to take down someone when it was a challenge.

~ ~ ~

That evening, it was decided to meet up in the boys’ barracks for their gathering. The entire 104th Training Corps would be there. They had decided to kick things off after lights out; that way, none of the instructors would check in on the girls’ barracks and find it empty. Not that a lot of them would be looking. Armin had a sneaking suspicion they knew exactly what the cadets were up to but were allowing it anyway.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t earned a night off after three gruelling years of the most intense training possible.

Truthfully, Armin was a strange mix of nervous and keen. He was simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the lights out call. He wasn’t a very social person by nature, not quite comfortable in crowds, and wasn’t looking forward to being around people like Jean when they had been drinking. However, he did have quite a few friends among his peers (a lot more than he thought he would, joining up. He never thought people would just like being around him) and he was looking forward to having a night to unwind after a stressful three years.

There had been a few nights like this, though on a much smaller scale, through the years; they would have likely gone nuts without being able to blow off some steam from time to time otherwise. Armin always enjoyed the nights where Jean would pull out some ale he had stashed away (no one knew how he managed to keep it hidden, with all the surprise inspections and the fact that all the boys lived together in what was essentially one big room. No one complained when he shared it, though) and a few of them would all sit around, drinking and laughing together. It was like they were normal kids goofing off, not soldiers being trained to fight terrors. They all managed to overlook their rivalries and grudges in that time, knowing how few and fleeting those nights were.

It was how Armin managed to make friends with his squad mates despite being considered ‘the softest man to join the military’ (quote from Jean). 

Tonight would be different, however. For one, the whole of the 104th would be here, instead of just a few friends. This was also probably the last night some of them would ever see each other again.

Armin was fine with his results. He knew he wasn’t top ten material, so he wasn’t disappointed to not get there. He wasn’t completely sure on where he would go when they got to make their choices tomorrow. He would find out what Mikasa was doing before he finalised his decision, though he had a pretty good idea what she would choose.

Armin sought out Jean to try and stamp out his nerves by getting their interactions over with. Jean was honest to the point of callousness usually, though Armin found that the more anyone hung around him the more they all started to learn about the subjectivity of truth; what Jean believed was fact was lies to someone else. This, and Jean’s tendency to speak his mind regardless of other peoples’ feelings, meant that words becoming blows was not an uncommon occurrence, and when they learned particularly brutal manoeuvres in hand to hand combat training, he was a popular choice of sparring partner. 

Armin also knew how he ~~not so~~ secretly liked Mikasa and decided to make tonight a little more interesting for all involved (it was a party, after all. _Something_ crazy had to happen).

So, a wager was made; who could get Mikasa drunk first.

Armin wanted to see his childhood friend unwind for what was arguably the first time in her life since he had met her. She was always so serious, so dedicated and guarded. It would do her some good to relax for once.

Armin smiled to himself as he went to help Thomas move some of the beds against the walls to make more room. This was going to be fun.

~ ~ ~

Armin was not disappointed, he thought to himself hours later. The party was amazing. Everyone was in the mood to have a good time, bury any hatchets that may have come out during their time training and just get along. Even Jean was being amicable, making him the butt of most of the jokes for the first time, much to Connie’s delight. And no one went hungry between Sasha and Ymir’s hoarding/pilfering skills with food. The food wasn’t exactly party material, with them being part of the military and not something like a merchants group, but if anyone had any issue with bread, hard biscuits and soup, no one brought it up (nobody asked questions as to how they got the soup either, simply chalking it up as a win).

As the night wore on they had to continually remind themselves to keep the noise to a minimum if they didn’t want to get caught, and they lost a few people who decided to go outside to do things that would likely end in disciplinary action, such as sneaking into the officers’ rooms or mucking around with the 3DMG.

In the small hours of the morning, there were very few of them awake. They had all migrated to the centre of the room, leaving the beds for those who ‘couldn’t handle their drinks’, as Connie had said with a laugh. They sat in a circle on the floor, careful to avoid the small puddles of spilled drinks and the limbs of people who didn’t quite make it to a comfortable surface before passing out.

Connie had just finished chugging a bottle so he could use it for a game (which would have made sober Armin nervous. Drunk Armin, however, was happy to roll with whatever was going on) when Mikasa came and sat beside him.

“Hey,” she greeted him at normal volume, which for her was basically like shouting. Armin took in the slight flush to her cheeks, the glaze in her usually sharp eyes, and how she had swayed slightly when she had taken her seat. He resigned himself to owing Jean a tankard of ale the next time they went drinking.

“Hey Mikasa,” he replied with a wide smile. She returned it with a small one of her own, which only made his grow wider.

He opened his mouth to say something (he hadn’t really planned what yet) when he was interrupted by Marco telling Connie off for his idea of a game.

“Come on Connie, we can’t do that! It’ll be weird!”

“Look Marco, just because you only have eyes for the King doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t normal human beings with normal human urges, alright? And what’s so weird? It’s just a bit of fun!”

“I don’t want to ruin the night with a bottle deciding who is going to make out with who and make everything awkward,” Marco replied. His single-minded focus to join the Military Police Brigade and serve the king had earned him some flak from his training mates often, and he was so used to them by now he hardly even noticed.

“Well what about a different game then? Instead of ‘making out’, as you put it,” here Reiner (ever the diplomatic one) interrupted himself to make obnoxious kissy faces at Marco, much to everyone’s amusement.

“We instead spin the bottle and have to… I dunno… say what we’re gonna pick tomorrow-“

He was again interrupted, this time by a chorus of boos.

“Lemme finish! Geez. We gotta say why too. And you have to tell the truth!”

There was silence for a beat while everyone digested this information with all the seriousness of drunk teens asked just about any question. Armin figured this had the capacity to get quite dark, if it landed on someone like Mikasa or Annie, who was always silent and cold. He felt his nerves begin creeping back.

“But what if it’s obvious, like Marco or Jean? Or it lands on the same people after they’ve gone?” Ymir asked loudly. There were murmurs of agreement, as it was common knowledge that they had their hearts set on being MPs and why, so there was no juicy gossip to be gained there. And no one wanted to hear the same story twice.

“Then they have to say a truth they’ve never told anyone else.”

Everyone turned to Mikasa, not having expected her to contribute, or even to play at all. Ymir gave her a devilish grin, eyes glinting in the light of the dimming candles as she turned to Jean and Marco, who had turned an interesting shade of red.

“Alright! Let’s do this!” Connie shouted, as he placed the bottle in the middle of the circle. He eyed everyone in turn; Sasha, Reiner, Bertholt, Marco, Jean, Krista, Ymir, Armin, Mikasa, and Annie. Interestingly, all of them (bar Armin) had made the top ten. He gave them all a toothy grin, before setting the bottle in motion.

It came to a stop on himself, causing everyone to hoot with laughter at his mildly horrified face.

“First spin doesn’t count!”

“The bottle has spoken! Go on Connie!” 

He pulled a face, causing more laughter.

“Fine, fine! I’m gonna join the MPs, to make my village proud. Mum’ll be so happy her son made the top ten already, just wait til I get into the MPs! I’ll be able to lord it over everyone!” He stood up suddenly, lurching to the side as he found his balance. He held out an imaginary blade.

“Look everyone! It’s Connie, working in the inner wall! I made it big, and you didn’t! Ha ha-di-ha ha!”

This earned him more chuckles from the circle as he sat back down. Connie was always the butt of jokes, but he had matured a lot from when they first started; where he used to get offended, now he just rolled with it, or else made the jokes about himself. In their life and death world, he was the closest they got to a class clown.

He spun the bottle again, and it landed on Annie. There was silence as everyone waited for her answer.

“The MPs. It’s the safest place to be.”

There was silence as everyone waited for her to continue. When it became clear she wasn’t going to, Reiner reached forward and spun the bottle again.

This time it landed on Mikasa.

The hush that fell over everyone was a different one from when it was Annie’s turn. Annie had made her opinions known to the few who bothered to ask, whereas Mikasa was like a blank slate. No one knew what to expect.

She put her hand on Armin’s knee, seeming to draw strength from him as she considered her words. Finally, she looked up from the bottle to the eager faces of her classmates.

“The Survey Corps.”

The group erupted with questions. She had graduated top of the class. Only those in the top ten could make the MPs, the safest job in military as it was furthest from the titans. They also knew she was one of the few who had been there That Day, had seen the colossal and the armoured titan break through the gates and let the titans into Wall Maria. They had all assumed she worked so hard to get away from them, to never have to see that again.

Not Armin, though. He calmed everyone so she could justify herself, curious as to how much she would divulge. Reiner got the last question in:

“Mikasa, after Shiganshina, why the _fuck_ would you want to go outside Wall Rose?”

Armin cringed slightly at the mention of their old home. All Mikasa showed was a slight twitch of her eyebrow.

“Because I have to find someone.”

Armin felt his blood run cold. He hated any mention of the friend, no, _brother_ , they had lost that day. He grabbed her arm, still holding his knee.

“Mikasa-“

“No Armin. They asked for the truth, they’re getting it,” she replied evenly, her face the picture of calm to everyone except Armin, who could feel her slight tremors in her arm.

Everyone watched them with wide eyes, simultaneously hungry for more information and sympathetic to the tragedy they knew was inevitably coming.

Mikasa took a deep breath, preparing herself to explain what she knew she would never even consider telling them were it not for the trust, alcohol, and Armin’s presence beside her.

“When the titans came, my… brother… ran for home, to try and save mother,” she began. If anyone noticed how her breath caught midsentence, they stayed silent.

“She was trapped under a beam. We tried to lift it, but we were children and it was huge. It was never going to work. Then a titan found us. I-I remember its teeth; they were huge, and there were so many. It looked at us, and it _smiled_ , as if someone had just given it a gift. I remember thinking we were all going to die, and that stupid, horrible, _fucking_ smile would be the last thing we all saw. Then someone grabbed me. It was a garrison soldier, a friend of the family. He carried me away…”

She trailed off quietly. Her eyes were on the bottle in the middle of the group, though they had that ‘thousand-yard stare’ Armin had seen in the refugee camps that people got when they remembered something awful, when they saw it happening again.

“…What happened to your brother?” Sasha asked quietly. She was an optimist, clearly desperate for a happy ending to Mikasa’s recount, but when eight pairs of eyes glared in her direction, she hated herself for asking.

“Mikasa?” Armin prompted gently, squeezing the hand on her knee. She started violently, her whole body snapping to attention.

“What?” Then she noticed Sasha gazing guiltily at the floor, recalled distantly someone asking a question.

“If you asked about Eren, he’s alive.”

She was hit then with everyone’s undivided attention, ten faces all looking at her with expressions varying from confusion, to hope, to sympathy. That was a name they hadn’t heard from either her or Armin before, but given their reactions it’s owner clearly meant a lot to them. Mikasa heard a sigh beside her and saw Armin with his eyes closed, as if looking at her was too painful for him.

“Mikasa- “

“He _is_ Armin! And I’m going to find him!”

“Mikasa, it’s been five _years_ \- “

“You don’t think I know that! You don’t think I know it’s been five years since I abandoned my brother to the titans?! But I know he is out there! Think about it Armin, who else could survive out there but Eren? He’s the most brave, stubborn, _stupidly reckless_ person I know. And I know he wouldn’t let some _fucking titan_ get him when I’m still here!”

The whole room was silent. Even the sleepers had stopped snoring, as if they knew that it wouldn’t be appreciated in such a raw moment. Mikasa had never sworn in front of them before. They had seen her angry (especially Armin, on the refugee boats That Day), sure, but she was always so composed.

Just _how much_ had she had to drink?

Mikasa was breathing heavily, tears shining in her eyes as she glared at Armin. How could he _say that?!_ She knew deep ~~, deep, _deep_~~ down that he was probably right; it had been too long, and no one had survived in titan territory that long. Even the Survey Corps, who had the most combat experience against titans of anyone alive, suffered many casualties with every mission that went beyond the wall.

Yet she also knew she needed Eren to be alive. He had made her feel safe when no one else had, had come for her when her family died and gave her a new one. Had wrapped his scarf around her when she said she was cold in this lonely world and said he would never leave her.

“Mikasa, you didn’t abandon him.”

She whirled around viciously, searching for whoever had dared to break the silence.

It was Reiner, who didn’t back down from her wild, teary gaze.

“From what you said, you were a child, and a soldier carried you away. What could you have done? You didn’t abandon him, Mikasa. And I’m sure he knows that, wherever he is.”

She felt her breath once again catch in her throat at his words, and heard Armin’s do the same. They were both looking at him, so desperate for him to be right in his implication that Eren had in fact lived.

“…Well, that got fucking intense,” Jean remarked, when the silence became too much for him. When he received several glares from the group, he decided they all needed more alcohol to get through this. Truthfully, he was a little frustrated that he hadn’t been able to comfort Mikasa. He wanted her to be looking at _him_ like that, not Reiner.

When he returned from fetching more drinks for everyone he handed them out individually, as a sort of apology for ruining what was clearly a very emotional moment. When he got to Mikasa, she refused the mug. He put his hand on her shoulder, gave it a reassuring squeeze, before moving on to Armin. He also refused, mumbling something about clearly having had enough to drink for the night. By that point Jean’s extremely shallow pool of goodwill had been all used up, so he simply rolled his eyes and moved on.

Reiner bumped Armin’s shoulder with his own.

“So, are you joining the Survey Corps too?”

He nodded without hesitation.

“Is it for your friend?”

He had to consider that for a moment.

“Yes, and no. Me and E-Eren had always dreamed of seeing the outside world. My grandfather had a book about it, one he’d kept secret from the MPs. It spoke about flaming water, a land of ice, and other land masses all separated by vast amounts of salt water. It sounded too good to be true to him at first, but we both decided we would one day leave the walls and find out the truth for ourselves. He hated living inside these walls,” he finished quietly. He stumbled over Eren’s name, the name almost foreign after not being used for five years.

(When he would think back on that night later, he would assume the reason no one berated him for his treasonous dreams like had happened in the past was probably because they were already breaking a few laws each that night anyway, so what was one more?)

“Hey Reiner, that’s cheating! The all-powerful bottle didn’t land on Armin!” Connie joked, trying to lighten the atmosphere a little. He was relieved when he got a few chuckles out of Sasha and Bertholt, and small smiles from Armin and Mikasa. Reiner feigned horror, clutching at his heart.

“What have I done?! Quick, Bertholt! Spin it and make it land on Armin so that it counts as his go! Then I think that’ll do us for the night.”

“What? No way! I wanna hear a secret from Jean he’s never told anyone!” Ymir crowed, jumping on the lighten-the-mood bandwagon immediately.

Lucky for her, the bottle didn’t land on Armin again until the sky was considerably lighter, meaning everyone had to share some stories. Krista still hadn’t decided on where she would go. Ymir hadn’t either, though many of them figured she would follow Krista, since she was her best friend. Sasha was leaning towards the Survey Corps, to everyone’s surprise. She justified it with the fact that they probably had access to exotic food from beyond the wall that they weren’t sharing with anyone, which earned her more laughs as well as a few eye rolls. Reiner and Bertholt were going with Survey Corps too, though whether that had anything to do with Mikasa and Armin’s stories was up for speculation.

By the end of the night, everyone had spilled some of their deepest darkest secrets, and they all felt much closer as a group because of it. Mikasa explained why she always wore her old scarf, Annie revealed that her father taught her combat training before coming here, and no one was likely to forget Jean’s reluctant story of how he had once sleep-walked into the officers’ rooms half naked at three in the morning.

Everyone snuck off to bed dry-eyed and smiling, hoping to get at least a few hours of sleep in before they had to wake up and face the consequences of a night spent drinking. Mikasa fell asleep with a smile on her face, thinking that even if they were all suffering tomorrow, they would at least be doing it together.

Maybe she had found another family after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it a bit too waffle-y? I feel like it kind of got away from me, since I didn't really want to leave it there, but I also figured we can have a nicer chapter after that vicious prologue, give them all something to smile about, then get into some of the more nasty stuff next chapter. I might come back and tweak this chapter later.  
> Next chapter we (hopefully) see Eren!


	3. Thrown in the Deep End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The colossal titan is back. But it's not the only one.

They were right, of course; their heads felt like they were going to explode the next morning. Sasha honestly wanted to stab herself in the brain when she finally woke up. It felt like everyone was being extra loud to spite her, and she barely made it to the window before she threw up their stolen supper.

“Get your shit together, potato girl. We gotta go,” Annie muttered to her as she walked past. Sasha couldn’t see much of a change to her behaviour, except for perhaps looking more pissed off than usual, and squinting when she reached the door and the sunlight beyond.

Who knew that even the stone cold Annie could suffer with mere mortals?

They were a sorry bunch when they were all lined up an hour later to receive their daily assignments. Even Reiner, with that steel rod up his arse ( _he’d make a great officer_ , she thought cynically) wasn’t standing as attentively as usual. Mikasa, on the other hand, looked unaffected as always, as if they hadn’t spent their night getting smashed and dishing out secrets that would never see the light of day ordinarily.

It seemed to be some unspoken agreement to leave it all, well, unspoken, at least for the time being. Maybe when they felt they could open their eyes more than a sliver without cringing and hear everything at normal volume again, they would start acknowledging it. Until then…

Sasha was positive they were being punished for actually having fun for once when they were told to clean and maintain the cannons on the wall for the day. All that sunlight, howling wind, manual labour… She shuddered at the thought.

It made stealing from the officers that much sweeter.

When she showed her friends the cured meat she had hidden in her jacket about an hour before lunch break, they all freaked out. It was a token resistance at best, however, and when one person asked for a slice, everyone else was quick to demand one too. It made her smile, that she had this group of people that would tell her off for doing the wrong thing, yet still want to be a part of it and not rat her out.

They agreed to meet up for lunch, then all went their separate ways to do their respective tasks before someone got suspicious of them all standing in a group.

If Sasha knew that was the last she would be seeing of some of the 104th, she would have shared the meat right then.

~ ~ ~

Mikasa froze at the sizzle she felt in the air behind her. Her years of study told her that that radiant heat could only come from one source, but what was true and what she wanted to believe were so different in that moment she found herself unable to confirm her suspicions.

Instead she looked down the wall into the district of Trost and saw civilians below her staring up in numb terror.

That was all the confirmation she needed that somehow, the colossal titan was back.

The déjà vu she felt was intense, as she yelled at everyone to get off the top of the wall and used her 3DMG to hang from the side herself.

Looking up into that enormous face, she could feel herself being paralysed, almost as if it had the power to turn people to stone with a glance.

A scream from below made her tear her eyes away and see someone falling off the wall, Mikasa couldn’t see who, their 3DMG not having anchored properly. She watched from her position near the top as everyone else yelled, clearly suffering the same debilitating paralysis she was feeling in the wake of their inevitable death.

Everyone but Sasha, who leapt into action. She detached from the wall and streamlined her body to fall faster, getting closer to the person, before she sent her two anchoring devices in opposite directions; one into the wall, one towards the falling person. Mikasa watched, somewhat amazed that she had managed to save them, especially when all the rest of them could only watch.

Then it got darker, as the shadow of the colossal titan’s hands braced themselves on the top of the wall.

Mikasa knew what was coming. She had seen it before.

“We need to move, now! Everyone, move away from the gate!” she yelled, then began to make her own diagonal descent away from the gate and the colossal titan, as it prepared to kick in the gate like it had done five years earlier.

She stopped suddenly, a thought hitting her that was so obvious, if she had a free hand she would smack herself in the face for not thinking of it sooner.

She could kill it.

Right here, right now, she could end the uneasy, tentative peace people had felt since Shiganshina and Wall Maria fell, knowing that the titan responsible was still out there. She had graduated top of their class, had excelled at all the training exercises, and was told she had a good head for tactics and reading a situation quickly. _She could do this._

Mikasa pivoted on the balls of her feet to face the titan and began making her way up the wall towards it instead, determined to end this menace once and for all. _For Eren_ , she thought, as she swung over the wall towards the titan’s neck, her menacing shriek piercing the silence.

~ ~ ~

Armin could only watch in panic from his position on the ground as the others began to speed towards him, trying to get away from the titan leering over the wall at them.

He didn’t want to see that thing again, that bringer of death and chaos and pain, but more than that, he didn’t want to see any more friends die.

He felt his heart leap into his throat when Mikasa changed direction, began heading back up. He felt like he couldn’t breathe past it, could only watch in horror as she went to face one of humanity’s biggest enemies alone.

His classmates were far from silent however, as they reached the bottom and saw what Armin was seeing. Shouts of disbelief, fear, encouragement, all jumbled together as she disappeared over the top of the wall.

Then several things happened all at once. 

The wall began to crumble where the titan had dug its hands in, and bits were beginning to fall to the ground.

A harsh shriek that could only come from an enraged Mikasa rang through the air.

At the same time, a giant foot appeared where the gate used to be, blasting the shattered pieces of it throughout the district.

Then nothing could be seen of the titan, as a thick cloud of steam hovered where it used to be standing, glaring down at the puny humans below.

Just like in Shiganshina, the silence that followed these simultaneous events was deafening, everyone too shocked to even consider breaking it.

Then the first regular titan appeared, a seven-metre class, lumbering through the hole where the gate used to be.

Armin had to slap himself to refocus on the situation directly in front of him. He had stunned cadets fresh from training, a giant titan, and a dear friend to worry about now. The rest would come later.

He turned to the cadets first, still staring wide-eyed at what was their first titan for a lot of them. If they stayed on the ground, they were dead.

“We need to get to the rooftops! Guys, come _on!_ ” He screamed at them, tugging a few arms to turn them away from the titans towards relative safety. He had to scream and shake almost half of them before they all got the message and hurdled towards their nearest highest rooftop.

“Armin, what was that?”

“Is this how it was when- “

“Armin, what do we do?”

He was taken aback at all the questions that were directed at him. He realised that out of all of them, he was the one with the most titan experience, having been in Shiganshina and witnessed all of this before.

He didn’t have a plan for this. Ordinarily he would say to rally to their COs, but they didn’t really have one yet since they were still unassigned, and their training officers weren’t even in Trost.

 _Come on, think! What would Mikasa d- oh goddesses,_ Mikasa!

“I need to check on Mikasa! The rest of you, go find a soldier and make yourselves useful!”

He prepared to send out the cables of his 3DMG to begin climbing the wall, when he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and was surprised to see Jean.

“I’ll go, Armin. I’m better with the 3DMG than you, and right now it looks like we’re gonna need to save all the gas we can.”

Armin wanted to protest, but he had to admit Jean had a point. Armin wasn’t the worst with the gear, but he was far from Jean’s level of expertise with it. He also realised that he couldn’t leave the cadets with such vague instructions in a moment that required planned action. He nodded and went back to the group to help discuss a strategy.

Jean climbed the wall with practiced ease. He had made it his goal to learn all the ins and outs of the 3DMG, as it was graded the highest and so gave him the best chance of joining the MPs. He enjoyed the freedom it provided as well, gliding through the air like a bird, not that he would ever admit that to anyone.

He reached the top in no time and felt his knees go weak with relief at seeing Mikasa standing there, whole and undamaged and _not eaten_. He opened his mouth to express this to her, so she could finally see how he feels and stop doing stupid things like this that almost gave him heart attacks.

“Mikasa! Did you get it! We can’t see shit down there!”

Stupid mouth, where did that come from?

Mikasa stood still a moment longer, before she finally turned around, disappointment radiating from her like heat from a titan.

“…no,” she replied quietly.

He frowned. Then where the hell was it? That thing was freaking huge, it couldn’t just disappear!

He ran to the far edge of the wall and looked down, almost expecting it to be crouched there, trying to hide from them. All he saw were a pair of giant footprints.

“Where the fuck did it go then?!” he asked, hysteria beginning to creep in.

“Hey, you there!”  
He looked up at the two soldiers who were running towards them. The roses on their patches meant they belonged to the Garrison Regiment, the people who patrolled the walls, did general maintenance, and used the cannons on top in the unlikely event of titan attacks.

“Your friends are waiting for you down below. They won’t move until you do, stubborn bastards,” one muttered. The other glared at him, before speaking up herself.

“Did either of you see the colossal titan?”

Mikasa nodded, while Jean scoffed.

“Kinda hard to miss, don’t you think?”

“Then go report to the commander, smartarse! We need all the intel we can get.”

They nodded and began descending the wall in silence. They were bombarded with questions when they met up with their fellow cadets, but they couldn’t provide any answers, having the same questions themselves. It was Reiner who eventually interrupted everyone to get them moving, because they ‘still had a job to do’, with a nod to the titans trickling through the hole in Wall Rose.

~ ~ ~

They were terrified when they were told they were going to be part of the middle guard.

Connie understood where the commanding officers were coming from when they justified it with the fact that they were all trained for this therefore they were ready for it. His gut, on the other hand, told him they would never really be ready (well, except maybe Mikasa, Reiner, and a few others who had already seen titans and were really freaking good in training) and that the CO’s must have lost their minds to think otherwise.

They had literally zero actual combat experience. Sure, they had their training, but wooden cut-outs couldn’t fight back, and certainly couldn’t eat anyone alive.

They were so screwed.

It was all he could think as they all were assigned into squads of six and given areas of the district to hold down until all the civilians could be evacuated. It was like he was dazed, simply moving where he was told without really paying attention to anything around him.

He watched the faces of his friends, trying to gauge how he should be acting from how they were, ~~and memorising them in case the worst happened~~.

Reiner was all steely determination, looking ready to take on the world and win. Annie still looked indifferent, but there was an undercurrent of something he couldn’t identify there as well; not fear, not in the way he was feeling, but certainly something that made her reluctant to go too. Jean was sweating bullets, which made him feel a bit better. Marco was terrified, it was plain to see, but he was also trying to beat it back, and Connie found himself admiring him for it despite himself. Sasha looked to be on the verge of tears, which made him feel both better and worse, in different ways; better, as it gave him someone to relate to, and worse, since she was one of his good friends and (though he would never admit it to anyone) he didn’t want to see her that way. She had a face that was meant for smiling, he’d always thought that since he’d first seen it.

Armin was trembling, swallowing convulsively in an effort to maintain his weak composure. Ymir had on her ‘this is bullshit’ face, the one he’d often seen in training during hand-to-hand combat or wilderness survival. Krista was crying, silent tears slowly making their way down her face as she visibly tried to make them stop. Silent crying always creeped Connie out. He was used to the loud, heaving sobs of children who had skinned their knees, the shrieks of tantrums, the wails of the grieving. He wondered what it must be like, to cry with no sound. Did it hurt, to physically restrain your pain inside, rather than let it out? He hoped not. Krista didn’t deserve any more pain. She didn’t deserve any of this.

Connie looked away from her tears and realised that some of his friends were missing. He went to Sasha, who was a lot more observant than anyone gave her credit for.

“Hey, where’s Mikasa?” he whispered, not wanting to interrupt anybody while they prepared themselves for battle.

Sasha looked up from her position on the floor, where she had been stretching her legs to prepare for the strenuous exercise of using the 3DMG. She took a deep breath and forced a smile on her face before turning to Connie.

“She got assigned to the rear guard. I guess they heard how good she is and figured they could use the help.”

He inhaled sharply, a frown creasing his face.

“What? But, she’s just a trainee, like the rest of us!”

“I know, but that’s her orders, and we have ours to worry about,” she replied sharply. They couldn’t be preoccupied with Mikasa, they had to focus on keeping themselves alive and she had to do the same if they had any chance of getting though this.

Connie mumbled something, his eyes on the floor, shoulders stooped.

“What?”

“I never got to say goodbye, that’s all.”

She sighed softly, then patted the floor beside her so he could sit next to her. She put her arm around his shoulders.

“We’re… We’re all gonna get through this just fine, Connie. You’ll see. Tomorrow we’ll be giving each other shit again like always. Besides,” here she leaned down and in, so Connie figured she was about to share a secret.

“That meat isn’t going to eat itself, and I am so damn keen for it, you have no idea.”

Connie couldn’t help laughing at that. Sasha smiled, happy she had cheered him up. Connie was like a puppy, and no one wanted to see a sad puppy.

His laughter earned them a few pointed looks from people who were trying to focus on their gear, and an exasperated sigh from Thomas, who was trying to get all his belts done up properly and had messed it up (again).

“What are you two doing?” Jean asked, walking over from where he had been refilling his gas cylinders with Marco.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” Connie replied, getting up off the floor to check his belts were tight enough. Jean snorted at them.

“Whatever. Just make sure you’re ready.”

Connie nodded, and waited until he had moved on before looking back at Sasha, the grin still in place on his face. She smirked and winked at him.

“You have five minutes cadets, then we’re moving out!”

Connie helped Sasha off the floor, and they made their way over to the rest of their group, who were all standing in a loose circle.  

They were planning a meet up after the battle. The forced optimism was obvious, but not even the most cynical of their group was willing to point it out. Instead, it was decided they would all meet up again later to get the meat Sasha stole and have a picnic on top of the walls, watching the sunset.

~ ~ ~

While the cadets got into position, a boy was observing the titans from outside the wall. They were all heading towards one particular part of the wall. While that in itself wasn’t odd, it was the number of titans that was concerning. Add that to the fact that the group around the wall didn’t seem to be growing and he had to assume that there was somewhere the titans were going that he couldn’t see from his position in a nearby forest.

He knew he would have to get closer to confirm his suspicions, but that was fine. He was planning to get closer anyway.

He made his way down from the tree that he had been living in the last two weeks, and after eating the last of his meagre food store (just a small, sour apple and a few nuts), began heading towards the cluster of titans.

He took no belongings, since he had none beyond the threadbare clothes he wore. He had taken care of the few things he had held onto earlier, stashing them in an old castle he had come across ages back. He had stopped keeping track of the months a long time ago. It was easier to live day to day, since his life was too unpredictable to bother with planning anything beyond a few hours ahead.

If things went the way he had planned today, though, he wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore.

He wouldn’t have to worry about anything.


	4. Situation Normal (All Fucked Up)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The appearance of a new titan may turn the tides in humanity's favour. But just what is its deal?   
> And how will the green 104th cadets handle their first real battle?

Armin had never truly appreciated the acronym FUBAR until this moment. He was alone on a rooftop, staring down a titan, and his entire squad had just been eaten. He was almost eaten too, if it weren’t for his last squad mate, Mina, grabbing his arm and pulling him out of the titan’s mouth. She wasn’t fast enough herself, however, and he could only watch from the rooftop he fell on as enormous teeth closed over where she had been kneeling, severing her arm as she had been reaching for him.

So here he was, sitting on a rooftop, looking a titan in the eye and covered in its saliva and the blood of his squad, limbs and entrails strewn around the street and rooftops nearby.

This was so fucked up.

That was the one thought in Connie’s head as he was moving from roof to roof with his squad. They had heard a lot of screams in this area, which always meant titans, so they came over to dispatch them.

They arrived at a bloodbath, their classmates’ body parts everywhere, cadet patches stained with blood visible on the remnants of arms and ripped jackets.

Ymir had just declared them too late when a huddled figure caught his eye, bright hair reflecting the sun. He swung around to head towards them, who seemed to be the only survivor of this massacre, and saw the titan that had their attention. He figured they must be injured, as they weren’t moving to defend themselves despite death staring them in the face. He signalled to Ymir, who saw the titan too and took it down while he landed on the rooftop.

He found Armin, staring sightlessly where the titan had been, soaking wet with something too slimy to be water, as he discovered when he went to shake his shoulder.

“Armin, come on! Talk to me! Armin!” he shouted, grabbing his shoulders anyway and roughly shaking him.

That seemed to be enough, as Armin blinked a few times before seeming to return to himself.

“Connie? How- Where did you-?”

Connie breathed a sigh of relief. Death was something he had been expecting, but losing a teammate when they were still alive was not something he wanted to experience.

“What happened here, man? Where’s the rest of your squad? And why are you all _slimy_?”

Armin stopped his hesitant questions and hung his head, causing Connie to frown.

“Armin?”

“Give it a rest, Connie. He’s not worth it.”

Ymir’s voice sailed down from her position on a chimney above them. Connie glared at her, causing her to scoff and roll her eyes at them.

“Isn’t it obvious what happened? The rest of his squad is dead, Connie. He’s the only one left. They must have thought he was a corpse or something, I don’t know, but for whatever reason he got to live and they didn’t.”

“Hey! That’s not fair Ymir, and you know it! Besides, Armin hasn’t said anything like that. You could be wrong!” Connie growled back. He never liked Ymir, always so self-centred and condescending. He had no idea how Krista put up with her, they were total opposites.

“Guys, that’s enough! Arguing won’t get us anywhere!”

There was Krista, moving between them to stop the argument before it could get worse. She was always looking out for others, trying to cheer people up, making sure everyone ate something at dinner, keeping the peace in tense situations.

Armin got to his feet, head still bowed as if ashamed of his survival. Connie didn’t like the look in his eye as he turned to leave.

“Armin, wait!”

“You guys go on ahead, I’ll go meet up with the rear guard!” he yelled over his shoulder, before activating his gear and zipping away without a backward glance. Connie watched him go, scared it would be the last time he saw him.

~ ~ ~

The garrison troops on the outer wall were terrified.

They had never seen a titan do anything like _this._

There were steaming, rapidly decomposing bodies all around the gate, both inside and outside the wall. At a glance, there were too many to count, and the fact they were quickly disappearing wasn’t helping.

Not many of the troops saw what did it, having been fighting within the wall further away, but the few who were there insisted one titan turned on the others, ripping them apart and going for their weak points when possible. There were at least ten of the smaller bodies on either side of the wall, making at least twenty confirmed kills from this alleged rogue titan.

The captains were desperate for someone to own up to the kills, even just to boost their own ego, so that they didn’t have to consider that a titan did this.

Because if a titan was smart and coordinated enough to attack others, and actually kill that many, what did that mean for them?

~ ~ ~

Mikasa was _this_ close to stabbing that merchant.

She wasn’t sure if she would have actually done it if it came down to it, but the threat alone seemed to be enough to get the man to move his stupid wagon and finally let the evacuation continue.

Seriously, how could people be so _stupid_?!

She saluted to the girl and her mother who stopped to thank her, wonder shining in her young eyes at the soldier who had saved them from a titan and a greedy merchant in the span of two minutes.

She sailed to the roof without a backward glance, not wanting to see the child who had looked at her the way Eren used to watch the Survey Corps.

One of the veteran officers she was working alongside congratulated her on killing the abnormal, but she brushed off his praise, instead focusing on her blade count and insisting she could do better. She had wasted a whole blade on one titan. How foolish.

They continued to take out titans near the civilians as they left through the inner gate to the safer area within Wall Rose, only stopping when they heard a bell ringing throughout Trost.

“Finally! The evacuation is complete! Now we just have to hold them off until the front guard can escape over the walls, then we can- cadet! Where are you going?!”

Mikasa didn’t look back as she swung through the district, intent on meeting up with her fellow cadets. She remembered the day Eren saved her from the human traffickers, how he had wrapped the scarf she still wore today around her neck when she said she was cold. How he had taken her arm and told her to come home with them, like he wasn’t changing her life forever, like it was so obvious she shouldn’t have been surprised at the suggestion.

That was six years ago now. It had been five since she had last seen him. She kept Eren’s face in her mind as she flew through the town towards her friends, who she was beginning to consider like a new family.

The civilians were out, but she still had people to save.

She felt her heart sink when she saw her fellow trainees all gathered on one of the higher rooftops, looking towards the HQ that was swarmed by titans. That could only mean that the squads tasked with refuelling everyone were stuck in there, probably with the supplies. She knew her gas levels were almost depleted, and she imagined that they were all in a similar situation, otherwise they wouldn’t have come this way in the first place.

If those titans weren’t taken out, they were as good as dead.

She asked Annie if she had seen Armin, and was glad to find him alive, even if he looked almost broken by the deaths of his squad. She knew he didn’t like having to rely on people, given his history with bullies and her and Eren fighting them off for him. This must have been tearing him up inside.

She offered him her hand and helped him gently to his feet.

“Come on Armin, we have to keep going. If we stop fighting, we die.”

When that garnered no response, she grimaced, before going for the jugular.

“Don’t let their deaths mean nothing.”

His head whipped up to meet her gaze, so quick she was sure he must have whiplash. The tears in his eyes served to magnify the anger there.

He was furious.

At nothing and everything. His squad for dying, Mina for saving him instead of herself, himself for not dying with them and having the _audacity_ to keep going when he hadn’t even contributed to the fight yet. At Ymir, for speaking the truth earlier, at Connie for insisting he was worth keeping alive, at _Mikasa_ for rubbing salt in the very open wound of his friends’ deaths. At that bearded titan, for not closing its damn mouth and swallowing him when it had the chance.

Mikasa was watching him, she must see how he feels. He wasn’t even bothering to hide it anymore, sitting on this roof ruminating on how differently things should have gone.

She must have, because he sees as if in slow motion her hand raise and slap him across the face.

He raised his own hand to his cheek, his anger flaring from a burning red to white hot. He opened his mouth to shriek something, he wasn’t sure what, when she beat him to it.

“Are you angry enough yet? Good! Use it, let it fuel you, and let’s take down those damned _monsters_ so we can get out of here alive!”

Her yelling had attracted the attention of everyone on the roof, making them the centre of attention. She whirled around to face Marco.

“Marco, there is more gas in there, correct?”

Marco jumped as she shifted her attention to him, scrambling to answer her authoritative tone.

“Er, yes, Mikasa! But there’s no way we can take them all down! We’re just cadets!”

Mikasa’s eyes narrowed at that, and she stalked to the edge of the roof.

“Then I’ll do it, alone if I have to.”

“What?! Y-You can’t! You’ll- “

“Die? Then I’ll die. But if I win, I live, and if I don’t fight, I die.”

She turned to face the others, surveying each face she had trained alongside of for three years.

“I know what I’m choosing. You can all sit here on your arses and suck your thumbs while I go do what we trained to do: kill titans.”

With that, she turned and leapt off the roof, heading for the titan-infested HQ. Everyone was stunned for a few moments at her small speech, considering her words.

Jean got up from where he was sitting near the edge of the roof with a sigh, turning to everyone else.

He was going to regret this.

“Well? Were we trained to let one of our own fight alone? No! So you guys can choose to sit here, like a bunch of _cowards_ , but I’m going to go fight.”

He surveyed the faces of his comrades for a moment longer, before turning and leaping off the roof before he could lose his resolve.

Sasha got up from where she was leaning on the wall. She figured this was their best shot at rallying everyone. If optimism couldn’t do it then insults to their pride would have to suffice.

“Come on, you dummies! Don’t be such babies!” she yelled as she followed Jean and Sasha, hearing the running footsteps of the others behind her as they joined in.

Armin was the last to leave the roof, watching as his friends engaged the titans. He was keeping tabs on everyone, how much gas they were consuming with each movement, and calculating how much each person would have left by the time they reached HQ.

An aborted cry caught his attention, and he watched as Mikasa fell through the air, having depleted her gas earlier than she expected. She landed ok, but now she was stuck on a roof with two titans closing in from either end of the street.

He leapt off the roof and was halfway to her before he even realised what he was doing. He wasn’t going to let another friend die. Not if he had anything to say about it.

He watched from the air as the titan closer to Mikasa took notice of her, steering towards her instead of just aimlessly walking. It started to reach for her, its mouth stretched in an eerie grin. Mikasa stood in a combative stance, blades drawn, apparently going to fight it without her 3DMG.

Armin cursed his own gear, wishing desperately for it to go faster.

The other titan, the one at the other end of the street, began running towards them. Armin’s stomach flipped unpleasantly at the sight. Was it an abnormal? Or was it just hungrier than the rest, deciding to take Mikasa before the other could steal its meal?

He wasn’t about to find out.

He landed as the other titan arrived. He crouched beside Mikasa, staring up at the two titans, before something unprecedented happened.

One titan attacked the other.

He had to rub his eyes and pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t imagining it, but this seemed to be real. The titan that had been running had put its fist through the other’s head, knocking most of it off and leaving only the mandible of the jaw attached. It then stomped on its neck, aiming for the weak spot, shaking the ground with the force of its continued efforts. In no time its neck was just a bloody smear on the street, the body just a steaming mass.

Armin was certain that if he hadn’t gone before the operation, his pants would be very, _very_ wet.

He turned to Mikasa, who was still staring at the titan. By now it had straightened, and without even a glance at the two cadets just metres away from it took off further down the street. It wasn’t until it rounded the corner that Mikasa finally acknowledged him.

“Armin? Did you see- “

“Guys! Are you two okay?”

Connie shouted down to them from the higher rooftop across from them. Armin nodded, then turned to Mikasa, hand outstretched.

They landed on the roof together, Mikasa on Armin’s back.

“I’m sorry. I thought I had more gas. Thank you, Armin,” she flashed him a small smile in gratitude.

Armin sagged in relief, glad that they were alive.

“So what was the deal with that titan back there?” Connie asked, either not noticing the emotional moment or not caring. Armin frowned, considering what they saw.

“You saw it too?”

“Well, yeah. It was huge, and I was already heading towards you, Mikasa. It was kinda hard to miss one titan taking down another one. What does this mean?”

Mikasa frowned. “It’s probably just an abnormal or something.”

“Then we need to kill it.”

“Not necessarily,” Armin cut in. They both turned to look at him, one with wide eyes, the other with a mask of indifference.

“It’s dangerous! If it could take down another titan like it was nothing, then what could it do to _us_?!”

“I don’t think it is, though! Guys, think about it,” he implored them, a plan coming together in his mind.

“It completely ignored us and focused entirely on taking down the titan. When it was done, it just left, even though we were right there. It could have easily killed us, but it didn’t even seem to see us. I think,” here he hesitated, losing confidence in his half-baked plan. He pressed on regardless.

“I think we could use it to take back HQ.”

~ ~ ~

Jean had never before in his life been happy to see a titan. But in that moment, watching the titans’ faces that had been eying him as their next meal be shoved by a massive fist, he could have kissed the beast.

The windows smashing behind him drew his attention away from the melee and he turned to see Mikasa, Armin and Connie sprawled on the floor. Connie sat up with a massive grin.

“I can’t believe that worked! Armin, you’re a genius!”

Armin blushed at the praise, mumbling something that was probably a dismissal. Mikasa simply picked herself up and surveyed the room, considering their options. She spotted Jean and went to stand beside him.

“What’s the situation here?”

By now he was used to her brusque way of speaking, no longer finding it offensive or belittling, since he knew that wasn’t how she meant it. She was just a straight down to business kind of person.

“There are titans further in, down in the basement with the supplies we need. No one seems to have any gas either, so we’re still trying to work out how to proceed.”

He turned to look out the shattered windows, observing the severely one-sided battle raging outside between the titans.

“So, who’s your new friend?”

Mikasa’s gaze followed his to the titan in question, who was currently taking on two titans at once with no obvious difficulty.

“Not sure what it’s deal is, but we figured it could help us get here, so we took out its distractions and it came here to kill more titans.”

Jean raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Really? It just came here on its own?”

“Like I said, it seems pretty keen on taking down other titans.”

“How did you know it wouldn’t eat you guys instead? Or any of us, for that matter?”

Mikasa shrugged, looking to Armin.

“I didn’t. But Armin believed it was a solid plan, and I believed him. He hasn’t let me down yet.”

Jean couldn’t help the brief flare of jealousy he felt. He wasn’t sure if there was history there or not, but he wasn’t in the mood to work it out. They had more pressing matters to attend to.

“The others are waiting further in, away from the windows. Come on, I’ll explain more inside.”

The welcome they received was quite nice, considering the last time Mikasa had seen them she was insulting them all.

Hearing about the titans in the basement put a dampener on things though.

Reiner and Marco were leaning over a blueprint of the building that was spread out on the floor, everyone creating a large circle around them while they tried to come up with a plan to save them. Marco looked up at the interruption and saw Armin. His face could have lit up the room.

“Armin! You made it! Here, come take a look at this, I want your opinion on something.”

Armin jumped at his name being called and hurried over to see what the issue was. He was glad to be helpful, enjoying the challenge of coming up with solutions to problems.

He didn’t enjoy the stakes of the problems, but he figured he couldn’t get everything his way.

By the time Jean had returned from raiding the supply closets, a plan had been formed. Marco had to admit, it was better than what he and Reiner had come up with, which involved most of them attacking the titans while a few snuck behind to try and take what they could before everyone died. At least this plan had a chance for no casualties.

Armin, however, wasn’t so confident, which was interesting considering it was his idea.

“This puts too much pressure on the few who wait in the rafters,” he insisted, the stress of deciding their fates starting to get to him.

“Armin, the pressure is the same for everyone. If just one person fires too early, or misses, or messes up in any other way, then the plan is screwed for everyone,” Reiner reasoned.

This had the opposite effect he was aiming for, as Armin’s eyes grew wide with fear. Annie rolled her eyes at him and turned to Armin herself.

“Armin, what he means is that everyone here is fighting for the same thing. This is life or death for all of us, and the longer we wait here the more titans are going to come through the hole in the wall and make leaving Trost that much more difficult. In the time we have, your plan is the best we’ve got. We all have a role to play, and they are all equally important. No one is getting the short end of the stick here.”

There was silence as she finished. Jean had to admit, he had been expecting Annie the ice queen to make things worse when she had decided to speak up, but she actually had a point. She was also more eloquent than Reiner, which would have made him laugh were he alone.

Armin’s shoulders fell as he felt the tension leave his body. Annie was right; this was their best chance, and they were on the clock already. He nodded his assent.

Jean clapped his hands together to get everyone’s attention.

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get into position! And remember, keep the business end of the rifle away from your face.”

~ ~ ~

Leaving that ~~building~~ indoor graveyard was one of the best feelings in the world. There were cheers and whoops of excitement as everyone leapt through the windows and sailed through the air, hopping from rooftop to rooftop as they made their escape from Trost. Everything felt magnified; the sky was so much bluer, the air so much sweeter, the sun so much warmer on their skin, warmed already by the beating of their hearts because they were alive, alive, _alive_!

Armin was just happy it had all worked out okay.

There were no casualties, but it was a near thing. Connie and Sasha hadn’t hit the weak spot on their titans but were saved by Annie and Mikasa.

Armin felt his knees give out as relief made his legs turn to jelly, sinking to sit on the roof of the HQ while watching the other cadets leave. He knew it was irrational, but he felt responsible for them. It reminded him of when his grandfather would watch him from the doorway as he left to go hang out with Eren and Mikasa, how he wouldn’t go back inside until he saw Armin was with them and not wandering the streets alone or something.

He would leave. He just wanted to make sure the others all got out first.

Some of his friends were nearby, keeping him company, all taking a moment to appreciate that they had _made it_ , they were alive and not dying in the HQ like they had all assumed they would. They weren’t out of trouble yet, they knew; there were still plenty of titans between them and the wall, not to mention the abnormal that was likely still rampaging around. Was it still attacking other titans? Or had it decided to go after humans like every other one?

A roar from the other end of the square answered their unasked questions.

The titan itself was backed up against one of the taller buildings, swarmed by four titans of varying sizes as they were-

Eating it?

Armin couldn’t believe his eyes. Never, in the entirety of human history, had there ever been a recorded instance of titan cannibalism. But here was undeniable proof, as its arm (the one still attached, Armin realised queasily) finally gave way to the insistence of two titans and was ripped from its body entirely, blood spraying over them as they crouched to catch the limb and devour it.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away, watching in horrified fascination as the titan that had helped them shrieked its pain (could titans feel pain? He wasn’t sure, had never considered the possibility) and struggled to get to its feet, to fight back. If the steaming corpses littering the streets were anything to go by though, it must have been beyond exhausted, as it slumped back against the building holding it up, head bowed in apparent defeat.

Armin was distantly aware of an argument behind him over what to do with the titan, when there was a terrified scream from his left.

One of the last cadets to leave was hanging from a building, watching in horror as an abnormal leapt from building to building, heading right for her as she froze, too terrified to move. Armin felt his blood run cold as he realised he recognised it as the one that ate Thomas, who became his first teammate to die today. He remembered vividly how he didn’t even have time for fear to register on his face, too surprised by the sudden attack, before he was eaten before their eyes.

There was another roar from their titan, perhaps the loudest yet, and he realised that it had begun struggling again, its eyes locked on the abnormal heading for the girl. Against all odds, it managed to free itself and kicked a three metre class away from where it had been gnawing on its shin. It staggered a few steps, before righting itself and charging towards it.

Armin was curious as to how the titan would fight the other with no arms and several chunks of its body missing, but he didn’t have to wonder for long.

The titan used its teeth. It clamped down on the nape of the other abnormal’s neck and shook it viciously, like a dog with a stolen steak. It then threw the body, already starting to decay with the annihilation of its weak spot, at another approaching titan.

They watched the scene in stunned silence, no one daring to breath. The titan threw its head back to give a raw, primal roar, before it fell suddenly to its knees, then to the ground. It lay completely still.

Armin was surprised at the sadness he felt when it started to decay in a mass of steam. He wanted to turn away, but he felt that he owed it to the titan to see it off properly, as thanks for keeping them alive.

It was Mikasa who spotted it first.

A figure was emerging from the titan’s nape, kneeling in the flesh. It was hard to see through all the steam, but the little sunlight that made it through made it clear they weren’t moving. The others were all standing there, too confused to decide on how to act.

All except Mikasa, who jumped off the roof before anyone could stop her.

She ran to the titans half eaten carcass and leapt onto its back. She ignored the give under her feet of dissolving flesh as she made her way over to the neck, to the figure in the steam.

She was a little disgusted to find that they were _attached_ to the titan, bits of red tissue still connecting their lower legs to the titan’s internal muscle and bone structure. It was getting unbearably hot, standing on a steaming titan, so she made quick work of cutting the remaining tissue and grabbing the figure, a young man, in her arms. He was a lot lighter than she was expecting, having just come from an enormous muscular titan she guessed she must have expected him to look at least a little like it. Yet he was actually quite skinny, bony elbows digging in to her chest as she carried him up to the rooftop with the others.

 She laid him gently down on the rooftop, and listened for a heartbeat while everyone watched in anticipation.

She nodded as she heard one, faint but clearly there. They all crowded around the man in front of them, assessing him in his unconsciousness.

The more she looked him over, the more she realised that he was actually quite young, probably not even older than them. He had messy, knotted black hair that fell to his shoulders, skin tanned from days in the sun, hands and feet (he was barefoot, she realised bemusedly) heavily callused and dirty, his soles almost black. His clothes were horrible, dirty and thin and clearly ill-fitting, worn through entirely in some places to reveal the skin underneath, also tanned. There were numerous scars on his arms and legs, thin white lines against his dark skin.

What she really noticed, however, was his face. There was something so familiar in the harsh angles of his jaw, the softness around his eyes as all his muscles were slack. There was small scar that traced the edge of his jaw, unnoticeable at a glance and likely when he was awake.  

She wondered if he had a common face, or if she had actually seen this boy before somewhere.

It was Jean, eloquent as ever, who voiced what they were all thinking.

“Who the fuck is this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day? How amazing!  
> ...ok, confession time: this was all going to be one chapter, but it was getting waaaaay too long, so I decided to chop in half instead.  
> Hope you enjoy it :)


	5. Of Thoughts and Prayers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cadets think on their situation and their new ally. But the worst isn't over yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I'm so so sorry this took me so long, I've been busy with things like a new job and Christmas and my birthday and everything. What can I say, life gets in the way. So, as a Merry Christmas to you guys, here's a super long chapter. I rewrote this thing like 6 times, but if it still sucks let me know so I can learn from this.

It was Armin who ultimately decided what to do with the boy: take him to their superiors. They would surely know what to do with this situation.

Truthfully, if any of them could focus beyond the shock that this titan guy had brought, then they would have reached the same conclusion, but Armin was secretly happy for the implicit trust they had in him.

Reiner was the strongest, so he carried him while they all made their way to the nearest wall. To conserve his gas, Reiner suggested he walk when he could, since the extra weight of another person would increase his gas usage and he wanted to be sure he had enough to scale the wall when they reached it. The others agreed to keep an eye out for titans for him and followed him from either the rooftops or the footpaths in relative silence. It meant travelling far slower than they would in a titan attack, but the titan-guy had practically cleared the district for them. It gave them all some uninterrupted time to think on their situation.

And the boy.

Reiner had no issue carrying him. He was heavier than he looked, being practically only muscle and bone. Though, that wasn’t saying much, as there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him; he looked like a strong breeze would blow him away, he was that thin. He glanced down at the boy from time to time, whether to check he was still out cold or even still breathing, he had no idea.

He had never carried someone so… lifeless, before. Even sleeping people aren’t completely limp, moving around and able to hold a position. But the boy in his arms reminded him eerily of a ragdoll, the sort little girls played with. If it weren’t for the soft breaths against his chest he would easily mistake him for a corpse. His pallor certainly wasn’t helping. Now that the residual heat from his titan body was gone, he was growing pale and sweaty, revealing dark circles around his eyes and making some of the scars on his arms show up purple against his skin.

Not for the first time, he found himself wondering about his cargo. Just who was this strange boy? He wasn’t a regular citizen, that much was certain; they wouldn’t be caught dead in the rags he wore and would certainly have bathed at least once in their life, which this boy didn’t seem to. Maybe he was from the underground, a homeless orphan struggling to survive? It would explain his appearance and why there didn’t seem to be anyone with him.

But he was ignoring a crucial piece of information: he could somehow turn into a fucking titan.

Pardon his disrespect, but how the actual _fuck_ was something like this missed?!

A kid who can turn into a titan would surely stick out in a small district like Trost (or anywhere for that matter). Word would spread like fire through a dry field, and news like this would be equally destructive too. And if someone knew (because someone would have to know, no one was that good at keeping secrets) then why was this not revealed earlier, when Wall Maria fell?

No matter how he puzzled over it, he always ended up back at the initial question: just who the hell was he?

Reiner shook his head, refocusing on the task at hand. These questions wouldn’t do them any good, at least until they could ask the guy themselves. He was probably the only one who could answer them anyway.

It was maybe an hour or two since they began their trek that the wall was finally in sight. By that time the others had started to join them on the street, the buildings all being too far away from the wall to be of any use.

They weren’t expecting a welcoming committee.

Garrison troops were waiting for them, blades drawn and cannons aimed. Armin sucked in a surprised breath and Reiner unconsciously tightened his grip on the boy in his arms. Mikasa took a combative stance immediately, though what she planned to do against so many soldiers was anyone’s guess. Annie and Bertholt gathered closer to Reiner, as if to protect the boy further.

He had saved their lives after all.

“Good job bringing it down, cadets. Head on back to your commanding officers now, we’ll take it from here,” the commander said.

Jean had no problem with heading back to the safety of Wall Rose. He even made it a few metres before he realised that something wasn’t quite right. He turned back to see that no one else had moved. He rolled his eyes as he begrudgingly went back to the others.

“Come on guys, he said to go so let’s go,” he said quietly. He tugged at Armin’s sleeve, figuring that if he convinced level headed Armin to go, the others would follow.

Armin, however, pulled his arm away. He kept his gaze on the army as he leaned in to whisper to Jean.

“I don’t think they’re going to let _him_ go though.”

Wait, what?

He shook his head, still determined to leave. Not being in titan territory was so appealing right now.

“They probably want to question him or something first. Can’t blame them, really. I have a lot of questions too. Now, let’s _go_ , before they change their minds,” he replied, perhaps a little forcefully.

Armin turning his scrutinising gaze to Jean for a moment. He sighed, seeing how badly Jean wanted to leave. If he was being truthful, he wanted to leave too. He was getting anxious the longer they were in Trost.

But he couldn’t just leave the man who saved them all to die either.

“Jean, I don’t think they will let him leave. I mean, they don’t exactly look ready to sit down and have a chat.”

Jean couldn’t hold back his surprised scoff. There was no way they actually thought they had brought him along just to blow him up here, right? What the fuck?!

He turned to his friends and saw his own angry surprise reflected on their faces (well, most of them. Annie never looked surprised, but she always looked angry, so he counted her too). They were all looking at each other, double checking that they were all on the same page with this.

Later, Jean would think it was kinda cool that they could have a wordless conversation like that.

Seeing they were all in agreeance, Reiner raised his chin defiantly.

“With all due respect, sir, we can’t let you kill him,” he stated calmly, though to those that knew him there was an undercurrent of warning.

The commander stepped back, as if physically hit. His complete surprise at their answer was almost comical.

“Cadet, this is not a joke! Drop the creature and back up out of the blast radius! It’s dangerous and needs to be neutralised for everyone’s safety!”

To everyone’s surprise, it was Annie’s voice that rang out next.

“ _He_ is not a ‘creature’, or an ‘it’, or anything like that! He is a _person,_ a person that saved our lives and those of all our friends and fellow cadets today, as well as so many others! He didn’t hurt any of us, when there were plenty of opportunities; he actually _helped_ us! He didn’t have to come here, he didn’t have to kill titans, he could have hidden wherever he’s been his whole life instead, but he _chose_ to come here today and _help,_ and I won’t let you slaughter him like a _BEAST!_ ”

Silence rang out through the area, her desperate yells echoing around the open space. Her chest was heaving, eyes blazing in a way none of them had ever seen before. Annie was always so disinterested in training, cold and distant with all but the most persistent of people, and even then she was only marginally less cold to them instead. Jean had her pegged as a heartless bitch, but even he was starting to see that he was wrong about her. He glanced around the group, at the people she had chosen to stick with in this massacre, and saw they too were re-evaluating how they saw Annie.

Armin and Mikasa liked this new side to her. She had something to believe in, something to keep her going. Or maybe this was just the first they were seeing of it. Either way, to them it made her more relatable, since they too had goals and things they were passionate about.

Reiner and Bertholt seemed stunned by her outburst. Bertholt’s jaw was actually hanging open slightly, much to Jean’s amusement.

The reaction to Annie was nothing on what came next though.

The guy in Reiner’s arms groaned painfully, arms starting to twitch towards his head. Reiner was so surprised he almost dropped him.

Everyone had whirled to face him, he realised with some embarrassment. He knelt down, as the boy’s squirming was making it difficult for him to keep his hold on him. He was frowning deeply now, his pallid face contorted as he struggled back to the waking world.

His eyes opened for a second before scrunching them closed again; he clearly had a massive headache or something, for he brought his hands up to cover his face as he shrank into a foetal position.

Reiner decided to put him on the ground, not wanting to agitate him further.

Mikasa turned at the sound of a cannon moving and saw them taking aim at him.

She was furious. In what world was aiming a _cannon_ at a vulnerable, hurting boy the right thing to do?! She moved in front of them and drew her blades, sending the clear message that she wasn’t messing around. She saw someone, one of the vanguard she was with before, take notice of her and lean in to whisper to the commander. She narrowed her eyes and smirked dangerously.

Good. So they knew who she was and, more importantly, what she was capable of.

The commander raised his hand and the cannon stopped.

“Mikasa Ackerman,” he addressed her loudly, so there could be no mistaking his words.

“While you are definitely a valuable asset to the military and the human race as a whole, if you choose to side with this monster I will be forced to take action.”

She frowned at his words. She was aware that the others had gathered in a rough circle behind her and were whispering furiously. She hoped they were coming up with a plan to get them all out of this. She didn’t want to die here, not like this. She glanced back, and saw a small, dirty foot poking out of her friends’ huddle. Making up her mind, she turned back to the garrison troops.

She couldn’t let anyone else die here like this either.

Mikasa considered a salute, but didn’t want to sheathe her blades, so she just spoke instead.

“Sir, while I thank you for your kind words, I can’t let the man who saved all our lives be executed for the crime of existing.” She took a deep breath to help steady her nerves.

“I shall remain standing with him, come what may.”

The commander sighed, looking genuinely disheartened.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” he replied, and he meant it.

Maybe she should have gone with the salute as well.

The cannon continued its course, the barrel facing the small group of cadets.

There was a gasp from behind her, but she couldn’t look away from the cannon, from the man giving the orders. She had to see this through.

Behind her, the boy opened his eyes.

~ ~ ~

Everything was so loud and bright.

It made his already pounding head feel like it was being trampled by titans, his aching body simultaneously wanting to stay still and hurt less and run away from all the noise and light.

He didn’t understand; wasn’t death supposed to be painless? Because if this was death, this relentless aching in every fibre of his being, then he really should have just stayed alive. At least that pain had variety.

Eventually the noises became clearer, and he realised they were voices. Voices? So other people were here too. They could at least have the decency to shut the fuck up for five fucking minutes and let a guy rest. If they’re in hell too surely they know how he feels.

Unless… he _wasn’t_ dead?

He figured he had to look around to find out if he lived or died. He prepared himself as much as he could for the coming pain and opened his eyes.

He saw several faces above him, all looking down at him expectantly. He instinctively raised himself up on his hands and feet and tried to scuttle away backwards, only managing a few metres at most before his shaky arms gave out.

He lay there for a moment to catch his breath, then slowly raised himself up again and looked around, squinting to allow for minimum light to hit his already aching retinas.

He was sitting in an open space in town, the giant wall on one side and houses on the other, surrounded by soldiers.

So he’d survived then. That’s nice, he supposed.

The people who had been gathered around him were where he had left them, all eyeing him in wary anticipation. There was a girl a little further away with her weapons drawn, facing a massive group of soldiers.

Were they going to fight? After all he went through to save their lives?

“YOU!”

He jumped violently at the raised voice and saw one soldier in particular from the larger group staring at him with disgusted fear.

“TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE, A MAN OR A MONSTER?!”

He wanted to shout back at him to shut up shut up _shut_ _up_ before he brought more titans over, but he couldn’t bring himself to shout back because noise was bad and he had lived without it for so long he wasn’t sure he knew how to do it anymore.

Old habits die hard, as they say.

His lack of an answer only served to further irritate the man, whose face was turning red as he screamed the question again. He shrank back further instinctively, trying to appear as docile and non-threatening as possible.

Someone else answered for him.

“He’s a man, can’t you see that?! Look at him, he’s terrified! He needs medical attention, not to be harassed by you guys!”

It was one of the boys near him. He glanced to them quickly and, judging them not his most important threat, quickly turned back to the larger army.

He stopped paying attention as they broke down into (incredibly loud shut up shut _up)_ arguments, his eyes darting from person to person, categorising them based on the danger they presented to him.

As a result, he was the first to spot the woman on the nearest cannon loading it. He turned to the smaller group, the ones that didn’t seem to want him dead, and found that they hadn’t noticed yet, though the one with the shiny yellow hair from before was also observing the other group.

He then began shouting to grab the attention of his friends, to calm the arguments and attempt to stop the cannon from firing, but the boy knew he wouldn’t be able to do it in time.

He realised they must have been arguing over him, if the gestures and looks in his direction were anything to go by.

Why would they be arguing over _him_?

He could see this was quickly becoming a life or death situation, and he knew which side he wanted the people he had fought beside today to be on.

So, he did what he always did; he acted on instinct, without thinking.

~ ~ ~

Sudden movement caught Jean’s eye, and he turned away from Armin to see the titan-guy running towards them.

“Hey! What-?” Jean began, but the guy ignored him, instead running in front of the group. He was looking above them, towards the ramparts of the wall.

Everyone fell silent as they saw what he and Armin must have noticed before; the barrel of a huge-ass titan-killing cannon pointed at their group. The boy fell to his knees between them and the army.

There was a loud bang, a flash of light, and steam everywhere.

Armin reached out blindly for his friends, trying to locate anything through the thick clouds of steam.

Where was it coming from?

He found a thickly muscled arm (must be Reiner) and a thinner arm (probably Bertholt, given the proximity to Reiner) and pulled them together so they could face each other (ha he was right).

“Armin! What the hell is going on?!” Reiner shouted over the confused yelling of the garrison troops.

“I don’t know! I can’t see anything through all this… steam,” he finished slowly. He looked around them again and saw what he missed before in his panic; a glint of bone, a mass of muscle, and the faint silhouette of a giant skull over there.

“It was that kid from before! He must have transformed to block the cannon!”

“What?” Reiner asked loudly, surprise evident in his voice.

He turned to Bertholt. They shared a look.

“Why would he do that?” Bertholt muttered to him, barely loud enough to be heard over the hissing of steam and the shouting.

“I don’t know,” he replied quietly.

They both glanced at Armin quickly, only to see he was deep in thought, not paying them any attention. They moved on.

“We should find Annie. We need to rethink things,” Reiner said. Bertholt only nodded in response.

“Hey, guys! What’s going on?” Jean said loudly as he emerged from the steam cover with Mikasa and Annie close behind him.

“Apparently that kid from before saved our asses again,” Reiner replied.

Mikasa noted he didn’t look as relieved as she thought he would, but given that they were essentially under a rapidly decaying titan carcass and couldn’t find a way out, it was understandable. She wasn’t terribly relieved either at the moment, more concerned about what would happen once the steam dissipated entirely and they were once again at the mercy of the garrison troops.

Annie pushed her way into the middle of their little group, shrewd eyes doing a quick scan of everyone for injuries.

“That’s great and all, but he has only saved us for these few minutes. Unless he somehow managed to calm down those stupid soldiers out there, we’re still very much in the same predicament,” she said to the group.

“So, any ideas? We don’t have long before the steam clears and those soldiers probably go back to trying to kill us.”

When no one spoke up, she turned to Armin. She could practically see the gears turning in his head.

“Armin, you’re last few ideas were good ones. What do you think?” she asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.

Jean snorted and muttered something along the lines of ‘except the one that got us here’, which earned him an elbow to the ribs from Mikasa.

Armin ignored them, pulling the final parts of his plans together as best he could in the time he had.

“Well, um… I was thinking, what if we made him valuable to them? Like, they clearly don’t see him as a person, they only see danger. But danger goes both ways, so I thought-“

“The point, Armin! Get to the point!” Annie snapped.

“I-I-I thought if we point out his usefulness maybe they won’t kill him!” Armin finished, tripping over his words in an effort to get them out quicker.

There was silence for a moment while everyone considered his words.

“And how would we do that? They’ve seen him kill the titans, and there’s not really anymore left for another demonstration,” Jean said.

Armin nodded quickly before replying.

“I was thinking on that too. I noticed earlier that there was a giant piece of rubble that was knocked off the wall. I think it could be big enough to plug the hole, and I think he could move it far faster than we could with horses and carts, not to mention the fact that more titans are going to keep coming until we seal it off.”

Jean frowned. He was trying to follow what Armin was saying but the shouts of the soldiers and the radiant heat from the titan body, not to mention the conspicuous absence of the titan-guy in question were all vying for his attention also.

“So, what? You’re saying we should get him to move a hunk of stone over the hole in Wall Rose? How does that prove anything?”

“No, I think I see,” Mikasa cut in before Armin could give a long-winded explanation of his thought processes (she would die for Armin in a heartbeat, but the guy really needed to learn how to be more concise).

“It would show that he is definitely on our side. Fixing the hole is something that only benefits us, and when you consider all the other evidence we have, it would prove that he is not our enemy.”

“Ok then. Do you think you can convince them of that?” Jean replied, gesturing over his shoulder towards the Garrison troops.

Armin swallowed and released a shuddering breath, before he visibly pulled himself together. He looked Jean in the eye.

“I can try.”

“You better do a lot more than try, coz we’re probably gonna die if you fail,” he muttered darkly.

Mikasa turned to Armin, offering him one of her rare smiles.

“Go on Armin. You can do this.”  
With one last deep breath, he ran out of the steam cloud before he could change his mind.

~ ~ ~

He couldn’t believe it, but he had managed to talk them down.

Or rather, Commander Pixis had talked them down, but still.

Armin was standing with him on top of the Wall, looking down into Trost. Mikasa and the others had returned to the other Cadets within the Wall, swearing a vow of silence on anything concerning the titan-guy. Not that it would do much good, as plenty of the Garrison Regiment had also witnessed it, and gossip spreads among soldiers faster than among housewives.

He wasn’t sure what to make of the Commander. On the one hand, he was an amazing leader, and he had decided to hear him out on his plan for the titan-guy. On the other hand, he seemed to constantly have a drink on hand, and he was currently surveying the titans he could see looking for a pretty female one.

He was an enigma, certainly.

“So, Cadet Arlert, was it?”

Armin jumped slightly at being addressed. They hadn’t said a word since getting up here.

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you really believe in your plan, or were you just trying to avoid death?”

Armin considered lying, but figured this was too crucial a moment to fuck up with deception, and just went with the truth.

“Both, sir.”

Pixis laughed at that.

“Well, I appreciate your candor, Cadet. Tell me, do you know who it was that came out of the titan?”

Armin frowned. Where was this going?

“Um, no, sir.”

Pixis hummed in thought, his gaze returning to the ruined district.

“Then how do you propose we enact this plan? Where is the man in question?”

Armin sighed. He knew this was coming, but he had dreaded it all the same.

“We don’t know sir. We’ve had no communication with him. He passed out as a titan, then Mikasa cut him free. He didn’t come to until we were with the other soldiers from the Regiment. Then the cannon went off and he disappeared.”

“Is it possible he died in the cannon blast?” Pixis asked carefully.

Armin frowned. He had been reluctant to consider the possibility, but it was one they couldn’t ignore. 

“Maybe. But the cannonball didn’t hit the nape, he stopped it with his arm. At least, that’s what the Regiment soldiers reported. We couldn’t see much from inside the steam cloud.”

Pixis turned to face Armin again. “Then what do you think happened to him?”

Armin considered it carefully before he replied.

“I think he got away. He could have left the titan body fully and ran away, using the steam as cover. We were all a bit preoccupied to be looking for him, after all. And he woke up to a hostile environment. I think fleeing would be the logical choice for him, since he doesn’t seem to want us dead.”

Pixis had been nodding along with his words. He liked this boy, who was willing to think outside the box and look beyond his fear to see what was directly in front of him.

Unlike the other Garrison soldiers, he thought distastefully.

“It must have been a rude awakening for him, to see the people he fought to save trying to kill him. I hope he heard me, and will give us another chance. I haven’t even found out his name yet,” Armin muttered to himself. Mikasa always told him his habit of thinking out loud was terrible, but he just couldn’t break it.

Pixis sighed quietly.

“Between you and me, kid? I hope so too. It would be really good to patch up that hole before any more titans come in. As it is, I’m going to have to organise a team of builders who are crazy enough to go in there, as well as some soldiers to escort them. At least the Armoured one didn’t show up this time,” he muttered.

He placed his hand on Armin’s shoulder, hoping to alleviate his crestfallen face.

“For what it’s worth, I was willing to give your idea a shot. I think it honestly would have been our best bet for resolving the situation quickly with minimal loss of life.”

Then he walked away, leaving Armin alone on the Wall. He had a reclamation team to organise.

Alone at the top of the world, Armin sank to his knees. He knew it was irrational, but he still felt like he had failed the man who had saved them.

And with him, the human race.

~ ~ ~

He had heard them.

He mulled over their words from his position in a ruined house, well hidden from both human and titan view.

He had thought the splatters of blood on the cobbled streets from his nose would give him away as he stumbled through the streets on shaky legs, but it seemed luck was on his side for once.

He had really overdone it this time. Passing out as a titan was never a good thing; he usually tried not to transform again for a few days if he could. Transforming _again_ after that was even worse. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how he had even made it anywhere; it was a miracle he didn’t fall off his titan body and kill himself.

After transforming to block the cannon (he _hated_ successive transformations, they always made him so tired and weak, nose dripping, limbs quaking, vision blurring. He avoided it like a plague after the first time he did it left him out for days, waking up to the smell of rotting food and rats nibbling on his toes) he had sat on the shoulder of the titan to take a breather while he figured out what to do next. As a result, he was directly above the soldiers he had been working to save from the titans outside that big building. He considered coming down and handing himself over, but he quickly dismissed that idea. The ones he fought with didn’t seem like the alphas, and he wasn’t so suicidal as to hand himself over willingly to people who were just going to blow him up.

He couldn’t trust any of them. Not while they saw him as a monster. Maybe not ever.

As he settled in to wait for the night, he considered their proposal again.

Maybe if he showed them he could be trusted, they wouldn’t kill him. If he blocked off where the titans were entering would that be enough? But could he trust them? After all, the last time he followed them blindly he ended up with no arms and nearly ate a cannonball. Besides, he also heard that they didn’t even see him as human. Was it really worth all this effort just to still be seen as a monster to be slain at all costs?

He sighed quietly, before rolling over to curl up on his side. He hugged his arms to his chest, subconsciously rubbing where they had been bitten off in his titan form earlier in the day. The wounds were still fresh in his mind, and he had found that sometimes soon after a transformation where he suffered a lot, he could still feel the pain as if the wounds had followed him to his human body.

He figured he would decide later, and on his bed of rubble he drifted off into a heavy, dreamless sleep to wait for nightfall. He always felt safer at night, when titans were less dangerous and he had time to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What'd you think? Personally, I am much more interested in exploring how they all can interact and everything after the Wall is fixed, so I was tempted to cut this chapter entirely. But I felt I had to explore all the differences, and one of the main ones was that Eren would have run away after the cannon fired, like he briefly considered in canon.   
> I also felt that the others would have stayed with him when they didn't know who he was because they thought he was going to be killed, whereas in canon I imagine they were all (except Armin and Mikasa) more willing to leave him because they knew him and as part of the military they figured they would at least hear him out first.  
> idk just my opinion.
> 
> Now that I'm not working at 4am with this new job, I should be less tired and more cognizant, meaning more frequent chapters (hopefully)!
> 
> Stay cool guys! xx


	6. Giving everything you've got. Then interest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren wings it again. Armin has some ideas. The Survey Corps make an appearance.  
> All the fun stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuses for you all. The best laid plans and all that. And with uni starting next week, I could either get worse with my times, or better due to commute. idk, guess we'll find out.

He didn’t plan on sleeping through the entire night. He didn’t plan on waking up in the grasp of a titan either, but that’s what he gets for exhausting himself and poor preparation from yesterday, he supposed.

The first thing he saw when he woke up was enormous dark brown eyes staring intently at his face as he hung upside down from the grip of equally enormous hands.

He quickly bit his own, much smaller hand before the overly curious three metre titan could find out what he tasted like and made short work of ending it.

He grunted in frustration at the dissolving corpse. The first rays of sun had turned the sky a bright orange. He had overslept massively, missing not only his favourite part of the day, but also his planning time. Brilliant.

Since he was already a titan, he figured he might as well not waste the transformation. So, with the decision made for him by circumstance, he headed off in the general direction of the hole in the Wall he had entered from. With any luck, the alleged boulder would be nearby and he could be done in a few hours at most. In the meantime, there were always more titans to kill.

~ ~ ~

Armin was woken from his bunk by an excited Connie.

“Armin wake up! You have to see this! Get your gear on and come on!” he shouted, tossing him his 3DMG and practically skipping from the tent.

An overexcited Connie wasn’t exactly a novelty, but an overexcited Connie at this hour of the morning (whatever that was, Armin couldn’t tell yet) definitely was. Armin struggled into his gear, almost tangling his belts in his haste. He hopped into his boots on his way out the door of the barracks, where Connie grabbed his arm and started dragging him towards the Wall.

“Wait, where are we going?” Armin asked, rubbing his eyes to try and shake away the last of his sleepiness.

“To the top of the Wall! The titan-guy from yesterday is back!” Connie shouted back as he ran towards the Wall and activated his gear, soaring into the early morning sky.

Armin couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he followed suit. He was alive. Thank the Goddesses.

At the top of the Wall he was greeted by Sasha and Jean, who explained that the three of them had had night watch and were keeping an eye on titan numbers within Trost when they saw a bright flash of light. The figure they saw running through the streets Connie and Jean would recognise anywhere.

Armin watched the titan as it clumsily attempted to navigate the streets. They were fine for wagons, but a bit tight for a fifteen-metre titan to run through comfortably.

When he ended up at the same clocktower three times (kicking some debris in what could be easily seen as frustration, to his observers’ amusement) Armin had to admit he appeared to be lost. He supposed he was put off from how far they had carried him unconscious.

“Cadets! Do any of you know the whereabouts of Cadet Arlert?”

Armin felt the blood drain from his face as he turned to face the voice. Three members of the Garrison Regiment were standing there.

“That would be me, sirs.” He replied timidly with a salute. He hated being the centre of attention.

“Commander Pixis would like to see you.”

~ ~ ~

Armin opened the door to the makeshift headquarters for dealing with the ‘Trost Situation’. Commander Pixis was sitting behind a desk. He put his quill down as the door opened, revealing his visitors.

“Well, it would appear your prayers were answered, Cadet Arlert,” Pixis said as the boy approached. He had to hide a chuckle in a cough when the cadet jumped at the door closing behind him. Beyond his apparent nerves, Arlert looked relieved, if a little perplexed as to his summons.

“Yes, sir, it certainly looks that way. May I ask why you summoned me?” he asked politely.

Pixis had to chuckle at the formality. He was tempted to simply do away with it, but that wouldn’t be fitting for their ranks. So, he simply answered his question instead, and hoped that formalities wouldn’t make this drag on too long. He was a busy man, after all.

“I wanted your opinion on how to proceed with your plan. Do you know if we can communicate with the titan-man? From the reports of your fellow cadets and yourself, it would seem you used him in the plan to retake the headquarters where the other cadets and the gas supplies were trapped,” He steepled his hands under his chin here, ready to analyse anything the cadet said.

Armin could only gape in shock. The Commander wanted _his_ opinion? But he was just a cadet, literally the lowest on the military chain of command!

Pixis could see he was having a crisis of confidence (you don’t get to Commander without seeing plenty of them) and decided they could both use a drink for this. He invited Arlert to sit, surprised when the boy actually accepted his offer of a drink. He hid his grin in his cup when the boy coughed, eyes watering at the alcohol. Clearly not much of a rule breaker, this one.

Nerves somewhat fortified by the drink and being on the same level as the Commander, Armin started to sift through his memories for important details.

“Um… I-I did manage to lead him to the headquarters, yes. But I didn’t bother trying to communicate, after all we thought he was just a titan, not a person _in_ a titan,” he eventually replied.

“An interesting distinction to make there, cadet,” Pixis said, taking a swig of his drink. All he had heard from the Regiment troops who were in Trost yesterday was the word _monster_. He nodded for Armin to continue.

Armin thought back to yesterday, and the events that unfolded since he, Mikasa and Connie had found the titan-guy.

“Well, we saw he wanted to kill titans, so we lured him there with them. We killed any that might distract him and left only those on the way to the destination, like a trail of breadcrumbs to catch a bird or something.” Armin shook his head slightly at that thought. Wasting food was practically a capital offense in the slums where they lived after Shiganshina.

“When we got there, we just left him to it and went in to get more gas. We were basically out by then,” Armin explained.

Pixis nodded slowly, filing all the information away in his mind.

“Interesting. But you don’t know if we can speak with him at all?” he asked it easily enough, but there was a calculating, piercing look in his eye. It reminded Armin just who he was dealing with here. Any lies to try and cover his ass or make him look better would fall flat here. Not that he ever did, but the warning was there all the same.

He shook his head, looking to the carpet away from that intense gaze.

“No, sir. I do not.”

Pixis sighed. He set his now empty cup on the desk.

“Pity. I know someone who would be incredibly interested to find out, but I’m not sure if we can risk it just to have a conversation. We’ll just have to stick with the lure idea, if there’s any titans left by the time we mobilise,” he said with a humourless chuckle.

It was a common saying among military personnel that there were three things that were certain in life; death, taxes, and the presence of titans.

Armin smiled weakly, unsure what to do in the face of such dark humour.

“About those titans, sir. I-I think I have an idea on how to minimise casualties,” he began cautiously. He didn’t want to overstep with the Commander, but he would hate himself if he had a chance to save lives and didn’t because he was too shy to speak up.

“Oh?” Pixis prompted gently, intrigued.

“Well, they’re attracted to groups of people, right? So, I thought, um, what if we gathered a large group of people in the corner furthest from the hole in the Wall, then lowered some down to keep the titans interested over there? That way, they would all be in one place where cannons can get them with minimal collateral damage to the town, and less people will have to face them directly in battle. It’s not foolproof, of course,” he rushed to say, not wanting to give hope where there was none.

“But less people would have to face the titans, so, er, that would hopefully mean less, um, casualties,” he finished lamely.

Pixis nodded thoughtfully. “Not a bad idea, cadet. I’ll consider it when drawing up plans. I’ve always believed the best way to minimise casualties was to eliminate the threat as soon as possible, but maybe it’s time for a different way of thinking.”

Armin nodded, and rose to leave when an idea occurred to him.

“Sir? I have a suggestion, if I may?”

Pixis nodded for him to continue.

“What if Mikasa, Connie and I tried to communicate with him? He may recognise us from before, and he followed us without even trying to hurt us. Maybe he’ll listen to us?”

Pixis frowned at that. It was worth considering.

“I’ll think on that Arlert. You’d best head back to your squad now and prepare for the operation. With a little luck and a lot of skill, this could very well be our first victory over the titans!” he finished excitedly. He had meant it to inspire Arlert, and planned to deliver a similar, rousing speech to the rest of the troops when he mobilised them for the operation. Saying it now, however, he found it somewhat infectious.

With the room to himself once more, he returned to his half-finished plans. Time was not on their side. He needed to find a solution before the town was overrun or the Armoured Titan appeared. If that happened, he had no illusions that they were anything other than fucked.

~ ~ ~

“Captain? Is it true?”

“Captain Levi, sir! What are you doing?”

“With all due respect, sir, why are we packing up?? We only just-“

The captain in question spun on his heel at the last remark, causing the scout (a bloody greenhorn at that) to collide with him, effectively cutting himself off. The captain stared icily down at his subordinate, the other scouts looking on in barely concealed fear.

“I know all of this. However, we have received some bad news from back home. We are needed there more than we’re needed out here,” he replied icily.

It was sometimes muttered among the scouts (far from his earshot, of course) that the infamous Captain Levi was very like the Ultrasteel blades they all carried; sharp, strong, and incredibly lethal. Maybe more like one that had been snapped, to accommodate his stature, but no one dared say that out loud.

The captain, however, was not in the mood to coddle anyone – not that he ever was, really, but especially not now – after the meeting he just had in the Commander’s tent.

They were turning back to the Wall. After they had come so far within titan territory. This meant that their comrades had all effectively died for nothing. They hadn’t had time to accomplish anything, save the recovery of a little book that, as far as he knew, no one had even had time to read yet.

What a waste.

He continued on his way without a backward glance at the scouts towards the rest of the Special Operations Squad, affectionately called the Levi Squad when no one could be assed with the real name (which was quite often actually). One look at his face was apparently all that was needed, as Auruo began prepping their horses for the long ride back. Petra was sitting on a fallen log packing a bag. She looked up at his approach.

“Captain? Is-“ she cut herself off, swallowing thickly as she turned to her bag. Seemingly finding courage there (Levi had no idea where, it was quite full), she looked back at him, eyes decidedly shinier.

“Is it true, what they’re saying?”

Levi sighed, kicking some loose stones to try and vent his frustration at something that wouldn’t be upset by it.

“Yeah. Yeah it is,” he replied quietly.

“Our intel suggests that the Wall has been breached again. Just like five years ago.”

Auruo spun so fast he nearly tripped as the reins got caught in his scabbards.

“Wait, what? Seriously?”

Gunter and Eld came over at Auruo’s outburst from where they were assisting other squads in taking down their tents.

“That can’t be right, sir! Look how far we’ve gotten! And what about everyone who died?!” Auruo asked indignantly, arms gesticulating wildly.

Levi turned his shrewd gaze on him, effectively making him cease all movement.

“I know, I’m not happy about it either, but since when have titans ever cared about what’s convenient for us? Exactly,” he replied to the silence that answered him.

“I’m just as mad as you are, but our duty is to humanity first, and all those idiots who have never seen a titan before are probably gonna die if we can’t get there first and end the bastards.”

Auruo grinned at that. He was always the most affected by Levi’s little speeches, Eld noticed. He filed that away for future use, when he was left in charge when the captain was away. In the meantime, he turned to Levi.

“We should be ready within half an hour, sir,” he said, back ramrod straight and looking Levi in the eye like not too many dared.

Levi blinked, surprised by the deadline.

“I only just received this news; how can you be ready so quickly?”

Eld’s entire demeanour changed at this, from perfect soldier to sheepish young man, face reddening as he rubbed at his neck awkwardly. He wasn’t expecting to be questioned.

“We, uh, never unpacked, sir. We don’t usually have time until dusk for that, when there are no more ops to go on,” he replied quietly.

Levi shrugged. “Whatever, works for me. I need to talk to Hange. Make sure you all stock up on blades and gas now, there probably won’t be time after we leave.”

With that he turned and left, ignoring their stares on the back of his head.

Hange was never a difficult person to find. All one had to do was follow the manic laughter and/or the begs of Moblit.

Moblit was hurriedly shoving various scientific items into their protective cases when Levi found him. Despite their fragility, his movements didn’t once falter, speaking to his experience with the items in question. Levi had no idea what they were, never bothering with Hange’s experimental crap. He was a practical person, not interested in theories or speculation.

“Oi, four-eyes,” he called into the tent. A shrill laugh greeted him back, and he fought the urge to roll his eyes (he failed). He let himself in, figuring his call was announcement and permission enough.

Hange was bent over a table, lantern in hand, examining something.

“What are you doing _now_?” Levi asked exasperatedly.

Hange made a noise Levi couldn’t possibly discern and waved him over.

He stood his ground and crossed his arms, allowing his green cloak to fall over them from his shoulders. He wasn’t going to be summoned with a _grunt_ for fuck’s sake!

“Have you had a chance to read that journal yet?” he asked, for while he was always in the mood to be petulant to Hange, he was also a professional and had come here for a reason.

Hange only grunted again and waved more furiously at him, almost hitting the table. With a put-upon sigh, he stomped over to the table to see what on earth was so important it stole words from the most talkative person to ever exist.

Apparently the journal was.

“Well? What have you found that’s so important you can’t even look at me?” he asked, irritation colouring his voice. Hange had a way of dragging things out, and he had shit to do.

Hange finally looked up, eyes filled with that familiar manic gleam.

“This notebook- Ilse Langnar- she actually _spoke with a titan!_ ” Hange finished excitedly.

Levi’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “Bullshit! There’s no way titans can communicate, because that implies sentience, and we all know titans are stupid as hell,” he replied, although he couldn’t help the small spark of doubt he felt. Hange got excited over a lot of weird things, no question, but they were also one of the smartest people he knew and could certainly _read_.

“It’s right here, look!”

Suddenly a small weathered journal was thrust in his face. He snatched it from Hange’s eager hands, shooting a glare over the cover as he opened it to the last entry. He had known Ilse, and had always found it odd how she catalogued everything on expeditions as it happened, rather than write a report at the end of the day like a normal person.

He was grateful to her now though, as he skimmed her final words (there wasn’t enough time for him to read it properly, as much as he wanted to. His literacy was not the best, though he would die before admitting that to anyone bar a select few). The last sentence was cut off abruptly, the pencil dragging across the page with so much force it tore through in some spots. It was hard to read through the bloodstains, but it seemed Hange was right.

Ilse had made the discovery of a lifetime. Too bad she couldn’t tell them in person.

He looked up at Hange, questions he dared not ask on the tip of his tongue (he didn’t have time to sit here and debate, there weren’t enough hours in a day for that).

Hange positively _squealed_ when he was done, grabbing the journal back before Levi could so much as blink.  

“Do you think it’s the same one as the abnormal we’ve received reports of in the past? The one that supposedly fought other titans? No, probably not, since I thought I saw a reference to that one in a different entry. I’ll need to read it at least a few times to be sure, but never mind that! Do you realise what this means? For humanity? For my _research_?!” Hange exclaimed, practically bouncing with excitement.

Levi didn’t even bother trying to answer the questions, he knew Hange wasn’t actually asking him.

Truthfully, the information disturbed him more than he let on, and he decided to return to packing. He had just wanted to know what all their soldiers had died for, and apparently it was the knowledge that the mindless beasts that ended them might not be so mindless after all.

Choosing to ignore entirely the ethics of such a revelation and his reputation as a titan-killer, he simply shrugged and left the tent for his squad again.

News would spread quickly, and doubtless people would want his opinions on it. At any rate, it might cheer up the rest of the Survey Corps, who were all feeling cheated at having to abort their expedition before they reached their destination.

Besides, he had bigger problems to deal with, like stopping another titan invasion.

He packed quickly, even by his standards, and was ready to leave at the same time as the rest of his squad. Commander Erwin had wanted his squad to scout ahead, as they were particularly adept at titan killing and always mobilised quickly. He mounted his horse and gave the order to move out. There was no time to lose.

They had lives to save.

~ ~ ~

Stupid fucking town.

Stupid fucking buildings and mazelike streets.

And fuck that stupid clocktower in particular.

He had wound up at the same place, _again,_ for the umpteenth time and he was pissed.

Considering they supposedly wanted his help, they could at least make it a little easier for him. He kicked at some nearby rubble, only slightly vindicated when it crumbled against another building.

Fuck this whole situation.

With a slightly steaming foot, he chose the direction with the most stomping coming from it and took off at a light jog. Smashing titans always made him feel better. In his eyes it was a win-win situation: he got to work off some steam (haha pun) and eliminate threats. It wasn’t a win for the titans, but it was a double win for himself, so he counted it.

He had never felt so happy to put his fist through something than he did at that moment. He blinked through the steam and found that in his rage he had eliminated five titans without even realising.

Rather than be concerned at the missing time (he had found that as a titan he found he felt things much more keenly; he was far more emotional than logical. It took a long time for him to even realise that his emotions took the reins, his higher thinking taking a backseat), he allowed his fury at his entire situation to fuel him. He roared as adrenaline coursed through his veins.

There had to be more somewhere. In that moment he didn’t care that once the adrenaline was gone, he was basically running on a few nuts and berries eaten the day before and a few hours’ sleep; definitely not enough to fuel two titan rampages and a partial transformation. It didn’t even cross his mind that at any moment all the exhaustion would catch up with him and he would die here at the hands of the monsters he sought to destroy. He just wanted to ride the adrenaline high, take out as many titans as he could, and hopefully save a few lives along the way.

He was following the same plan he always had, just with slight variations.

He had just finished clearing another section of the town (made somewhat challenging by the fact that they all seemed to be running somewhere rather than wanting to fight him) and had his eyes on a fifteen metre at the other end of the street when a flash of movement streaked behind it suddenly. He blinked, and it fell to the ground, steaming before it even made impact.

He growled in anger. Who did they think they were, stealing his kill? He was helping them, not the other way around! He kicked at the titan carcass, frustrated at its lack of solidity and therefore lack of impact on the ground (kicking rubble was much better. Maybe he should kick that clocktower). He didn’t _need_ their help!

A yell from a nearby rooftop caught his attention, and he turned to see the shiny haired kid from before, as well as the bald one. They were soon joined by the third one from before, the one with the long black hair who killed a lot of titans.

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at them. While he did want to help, he wasn’t in the mood to lose limbs again because they got what they wanted and decided to leave him alone.

The shiny-haired kid yelled again and waved at him.

He could feel his frustration turning to anger. He couldn’t make out their words over the continuous cannon fire from the far walls.

Wait, when did the cannons start firing?

He looked over to the wall, and sure enough there were cannons all pointing directly downward. He stood up on his toes to get a better view and could just make out the sea of titan arms reaching up towards… something. He couldn’t quite tell from this distance (when had he gotten so far away? How long had he been just running around killing titans?), but it seemed that things were hanging at even intervals from the wall, to keep the titans occupied.

Oh, man. It had to be people. Nothing else could hold a titan’s attention like that.

He was just debating if he wanted to risk cannon fire to get more titans and/or save the idiots just _hanging_ there when he felt a sudden weight on his shoulder. He glanced over and saw that the black haired one was actually _standing_ on his shoulder. He felt his eyebrows raise in surprise, but apparently they weren’t done. He grunted in surprise as he felt his _hair_ being _yanked_ in the direction of the two on the rooftop.

What the fuck was _with_ these people?!

He shot his hand out and caught the stinging cables just as they started to fire. He held the black haired one from the cables, scrutinising them closely as their friends yelled from the rooftop.

They stared back, no fear on their face, dark eyes meeting green.

He snorted, ruffling their hair. He liked this one. They weren’t afraid like the others.

He was briefly tempted to give them a reason to fear him, as he was a fucking titan and they should be shitting their pants right now (he had seen ones older than them do it when he picked them up, or interacted with them at all as a titan come to think of it. Huh), but he wasn’t here to terrify people. The titans do that well enough on their own.

He came here to help.

He gently, oh so gently, because people were so fragile and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt them, suspended them until they were centimetres off the ground (he didn’t trust his big titan hands to be able to place them down fully without causing some kind of injury). He let go, and they landed safely. The others rushed over to them, and after what he assumed were reassurances of health and safety, they all turned back to him.

He sighed. This couldn’t end well for him. But his curiosity and willingness to help outweighed his self-preservation, and he knelt down in the street to hear them better.

~ ~ ~

When the titan picked up Mikasa, she honestly thought she was going to die.

When asked later, she couldn’t tell anyone why she thought jumping on the shoulder of a titan and pulling its hair was a good idea. She just knew she had to get its attention somehow, since it kept getting distracted by what was happening at the Wall and it didn’t seem to be able to hear them properly.

As she felt herself being lifted, a million thoughts rushed through her head at once. How had it moved so fast? What was it going to do? Could she somehow get away when it had her cables?

One thought was louder than all the rest, however: she would show no fear.

She still had fight in her, because if you don’t fight you die, and she was not dying today.

She wasn’t sure what it was looking for as it seemed to appraise her. She had never felt so vulnerable as she did then, hanging in the breeze at the whim of a titan.

The breath of air caught her by surprise, as did the smell (or rather, the lack of it. She hadn’t even realised that she was expecting a rotting meat smell, like the other titans). She couldn’t tear her eyes away from its face as it seemed to change expressions to one that could be mistaken for thoughtfulness. It was so odd to see any expression on the face of a titan, and harder still to discern what it was with the lack of lips or cheeks or anything around those huge teeth. She never realised how much people relied on mouths to determine an expression. She knew it helped, which was part of the reason she liked to pull her scarf up over her own when she wasn’t feeling up to talking to anyone. But it was unnerving to see a face that _couldn’t_ use one.

She watched as its brow seemed to crease, as if in concentration, as she felt herself being moved through the air.

Mikasa only looked away when she stopped moving, to find herself less than half a metre off the rooftop.

He was… letting her go?

She landed less gracefully than she ordinarily would. Immediately Armin and Connie were all over her, checking her for injuries even though they had all seen that nothing happened to her.

Typical boys.

She shooed them off before turning back to the titan. Its head was turned away, so they could see its large, pointed ear poking out from his hair.  She looked over to see what was so interesting, but there wasn’t anything at the other end of the street. She turned to Armin, brows knitted in a frown.

Connie shrugged in response.

“Maybe he’s just trying to hear us better? With ears that big, I bet those cannons are loud.”

Mikasa snorted. “Yeah ri-“

The titan grunting cut her off. She turned back to see it glaring at them. When she continued to stare puzzlingly at it, it rolled its eyes at her, before cupping its hand around its giant ear, pushing its hair out of the way.

She was stunned. A titan, an honest-to-Goddess _titan_ , just _rolled its eyes_ at her.

What the fuck?!

“Connie, you’re a genius!” Armin shouted.

Connie’s grin was as wide as any titans at the praise. “Well, of course I am,” he replied.

Armin walked over to the titan, stopping well before the edge of the roof. He wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to take up too much time, in case the big guy didn’t even understand them. But he also didn’t want to oversimplify it and accidentally insult its intelligence, if it was in fact a human who could become a titan, and not the other way around.

He glanced back to the others. Connie was still revelling in his praise from before, while Mikasa was surveying the area. She glanced briefly at him, shot him a ‘hurry the fuck up’ look, then continued her dynamic assessment.

She was right. They were still in titan territory, and the sooner they got out the better.

He turned back to the titan and prepared to be the first person in history to talk to one.

~ ~ ~

The boy was cursing horribly inside his head.

He should have trusted his gut. Helping these guys only caused him pain.

At first, he was glad to finally be doing something to help them and prove he shouldn’t be cut open like an animal. But this boulder was _heavy_ , weighing far more than anything he had ever tried to move as a titan before. He felt like his bones were splintering with every step, shoulders sinking into his body a little more with each passing second.

It was a wonder he even made it this far.

At least he didn’t have to fight off titans. Most of the ones already in the district were attracted to the far corner due to the other humans acting as bait. He only really had to worry about new ones coming in, and the three kids from before were hanging around him to drive them off. They had somehow gathered some of the adult soldiers, the ones with the flowers on their backs who had tried to shoot him yesterday, to help them.

It was surreal, to be the one being protected for once.

It wouldn’t matter soon anyway; he couldn’t keep this up much longer. If he didn’t get there soon, he’d have to drop the rock if it didn’t drop him first. He knew he was in a dangerous position right now; if his arms gave out, he’d be crushed. The rock was resting on his shoulders, and therefore his nape, so if it fell his actual body would be squished along with the titan one.

That didn’t bother him too much though. Danger had been his constant companion for years now, he’d be lonely if it left.

He stumbled on a piece of debris, falling to one knee. He stayed there, trying to keep his grip on the boulder.

He couldn’t do this. Who was he trying to kid? As if anything could carry this thing that far, it’s just too heavy.

His vision was starting to blur, pulsing with the pressure in his head and shoulders. He was suddenly acutely aware that he had no energy left. He should just put the huge ass rock down and leave them to do the rest. Surely, they had some way of fixing it themselves, right? They didn’t need him, they’d been living just fine without him for years now.

Yeah, he could put the rock down. Get out of this stupid titan body, go take a nap for a few days, then think about something to eat. 

That sounded nice.

He looked up at a sudden, ear-splitting shriek. One of the flower soldiers had been grabbed mid-air by a three-metre titan and was being slowly ripped apart.

To his left, another scream as someone was swatted from the air towards the ground, landing with a sickening crack, blood seeping from a twisted body.

He breathed hard at the sight, horrified fascination keeping his eyes locked on the scene.

All thoughts of surrender were dashed from his mind like the soldier’s life from his body. That was why he was here, to stop this from happening. He roared as he made his way back to his feet, miraculously not losing the boulder in the process.

He had a job to do.

He began moving forwards once more, ignoring the yells that he managed to catch over the rush of blood in his ears. He chanced a glance up and could have fainted in relief.

The hole was just up ahead. Finally.

He kept his face towards the ground. It was slightly easier to support the boulder with his head in that position.

‘Just one more step,’ he told himself. He took a step.

‘Just one more step.’ He knew it was a lie, but he took it anyway.

‘Just one more step.’ His legs were getting shaky now, his strides smaller.

‘Just… one more…’ He stepped over another human body. The empty eyes felt accusing.

‘One… more…’ He couldn’t do this.

He took another step.

The ground was much brighter here. He looked up and realised he had finally reached his destination.

Just as well. He had nothing left.

With a deafening roar, he put the rock in place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally I resolved the Trost situation! I have wanted to move on from this for aaaaages, but in the end I felt this had to be said. I felt that we needed to see how it was resolved, as this sets the foundation for Eren's new relationship with his old friends Armin and Mikasa.  
> Next up will be the #jailbirdlyfe, then we can move on to Eren's relationships with the other cadets and the Levi Squad, and see more of how his mindset is different due to his time in titanville.  
> I have also started playing the AoT games on Xbox, as a way to refresh myself on what happened at the start. I have a newfound respect for titans and the soldiers now. It's a bit of an eyeopener for how so many have died.
> 
> Finally, I wanna thank you all for your patience. I know I've been taking a lot longer than either of us wanted, but I'd like to ask you all to stick with me just a bit longer. It's gonna get good(er), I promise.


End file.
